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‘ LECTURES? 


ΕἸΝῸ AND SECOND: EPIstLEs 


BY ria 


THE REV. JOHN LILLIE, D.D., 


Late Pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Kingston, N. ¥., author of “ Lectures on the 
Epistles of Paul to the Thessalonians,” etc. 


WITH AN [INTRODUCTION 
BY 


PELL. ΞΟ AR ae. 


New-York : 
CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO., 654 BROADWAY. 


1869. 





Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER ἃ ©O., 


In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of 
New-York. 





Joun A. Gray & Green, Printers, 16 anp 18 Jacop Street, New-York. 


ΤΕ ΘῈΣ: 


In bringing before the public a posthumous work of the 
Rev. Joun Lituigr, D.D., his friends are actuated not only by 
a desire to erect a fitting monument to his name, but also by 
the conviction that thereby they will do a good service to the 
cause of sacred learning and to the Christian pulpit. 

Dr. Lillie, a Scotchman by birth and an American by 
adoption, was one of the best classical and biblical scho- 
lars of this country. Born December 16th, 1812, at Kelso, 
he graduated at the University of Edinburgh in 1831 with- 
the first honors of his class; and in public recognition 
of his subsequent labors in the cause of sacred learning, 
his Alma Mater conferred upon him, in 1855, the honorary 
degree of Doctor of Divinity. In 1834, he emigrated, in 
company with elder members of his family, to the United 
States, and after completing his theological studies at New- 
Brunswick, N. J., he entered the ministry of the Gospel. 
He died, after a brief illness, February 23d, 1867, in the 
prime of life and vigor, as pastor of the First Presbyterian 
Church at Kingston, N. Y., universally esteemed and great- 
ly beloved by the people of his charge. 

Without neglecting his pastoral duties, he was always an 
enthusiastic and most systematic student, especially of the 
Bible. For several years he devoted himself exclusively to 
the critical study of the New Testament, with the help of 
the most ‘extensive exegetical library of New-York City. 


iv Preface. 


He prepared elaborate critical and philological commenta- 
ries on the Epistles to the Thessalonians, the Epistles of 
James, Peter, John, and Jude, most of which were published 
by the American Bible Union. His last work was the 
translation of Auberlen and Riggenbach’s Commentary on 
the Thessalonians, with valuable additions, for the Ameri- 
can edition of Lange’s “ Bible-work.” It appeared in the 
sixth volume, in 1868, with a biographical notice by the 
general editor, who esteemed him as a dear personal friend 
and as one of his ablest co-workers in this extensive enter- 
prise. 

At his death Dr. Lillie left in manuscript his Lectures on 
the Epistles of Peter, which he had elaborated with special 
interest, and which he regarded as his best work. They are 
similar in character and scope to his Lectures on the Thes- 
salonians, published by Messrs. R. Carter & Brothers, New- 
York, 1860. Though very different in plan and structure 
from the immortal work of Archbishop Leighton on the 
First Epistle of Peter, they breathe the same reverential 
spirit and devotional fervor, while they are much more full 
and thorough as an exposition, and have the great advan- 
tage of embodying the most valuable results of the latest 
critical research and exegetical learning, | 

Dr. Doddridge, in his preface to Archbishop Leighton’s 
commentary, in giving some account of the labor which he 
bestowed on its preparation for the press, almost makes a 
merit of the inaccuracies of the copy, as showing “how well 
the distinguished author knew the value of time, and how 
superior he was to popular applause.” The doctor adds 
that the delight and edification which he found in the 
work itself formed a full equivalent for the pains he be- 
stowed on it. The pleasure and profit of superintending 
the printing of the present work have been equally satis- 
fying to those who engaged in it as a willing service to the 


Preface. Vv 


Church of God and to the memory of a beloved friend. In 
this case, however, there is no need to frame apologies for 
inaccuracies of the original copy, which was so perfectly pre- 
pared for the press that the only care necessary has been 
to follow it accurately. The work is presented to the read- 
er precisely as the author left it. No question of alteration 
or omission has ever been raised except regarding one or 
two paragraphs which reflect the popular excitement of the 
trying period during which the lectures were delivered, and 
which it was thought might seem out of place in a work 
whose object and influence lie far beyond the range of local 
and ephemeral interests. But upon the whole it was thought 
unwarrantable to use any liberty with a manuscript which 
bore evident marks of the author’s severe and deliberate 
scrutiny. 

In like manner, Dr. Doddridge, while paying a just tribute 
to the eloquence of Leighton, and rightly claiming that, 
“though the practical preacher chiefly shines in his work, the 
judicious expositor also appears,” makes a merit of its defi- 
ciency in what he styles “the laborious sifting of words and 
syllables,” as though that were beneath the dignity of the ob- 
ject which his author pursued. How far this estimate of 
the value of a minute examination of the text may have 
been influenced by Doddridge’s views of inspiration, we can- 
not say. But with Dr. Lillie’s conviction that the words and 
syllables to be sifted are those which the Holy Ghost taught, 
no labor bestowed in ascertaining their precise weight and 
import could be regarded as excessive. His business as an 
expositor was not to suggest what meanings could be forced 
upon the text, or what truths could be clustered around it, but 
to determine with accuracy what the inspired words are de- 
signed to convey, under the assurance that there is not so 
much as a syllable redundant or insignificant. This is a 
chief excellence of these lectures. They abundantly illus- 


vi Preface. 


trate the Divine wisdom in the choice of human words to re- 
veal spiritual things—a wisdom which becomes more evident 
on the most thorough scrutiny, just as that wisdom is dis- 
played in the infinitesimal exactness of its provisions and 
adaptations in the physical creation. 

These lectures show how the results of the most profound 
study and of scholarly research may contribute to the edifica- 
tion of the Church, in the hands of one who is taught of God. 
They also show, indirectly, how little mere study and learn- 
ing could supply the lack of spiritual discernment. Though 
we may not speak as Doddridge does of a style which recalls 
“that soft and sweet eloquence of Ulysses which Homer de- 
scribes as falling like flakes of snow,” the present work will 
be found valuable as an example of rich and forcible English. 
Passages of great beauty are scattered without effort through- 
out the volume, and it will be seen that a careful exegesis does 
not extinguish the fire or impede the flow of the most effec- 
tive eloquence. 

In truth, one of the benefits anticipated from the publica- 
tion of these lectures is, that they will recommend, while they 
exemplify, the systematic exposition of Scripture as at once 
the most edifying and most permanently attractive form of 
pulpit ministration. Dr. Lillie may in some measure owe his 
success in this mode of instruction to his familiarity with it 
in the Scottish pulpit and to his theological training under 
Dr. John Brown, who greatly excelled in it, and to whose lec- 
tures on Peter affectionate reference is made in a note on 
page 237 of the volume. We believe it is not the partiality 
of friendship which ventures the judgment that, in many im- 
portant particulars, the pupil has outstripped the master. 

But without instituting any comparison of their respective 
works, we would offer ‘either of them in evidence that the 
practice of expository lecturing may be precisely what is 
needed in our day,.to give greater power and efficiency to 


Preface. . On 


the pulpit. We urge not so much the consideration that the 
general adoption of this practice would gather interested 
hearers around the pulpit, as the consideration that it would 
minister truly to the spiritual wants of the people of God ; 
and we can scarcely doubt would be followed by a signal re- 
vival of the languishing graces and energies of the Church. 
This is not the place to expatiate on its advantages, yet we 
cannot dismiss the subject without suggesting that the regu- 
lar exposition of some book in the Bible, such as we find in 
these Lectures, would insure due attention to important doc- 
trines which otherwise are apt to be overlooked, and the con- 
sideration of relative duties which could not otherwise be in- 
troduced into the pulpit without the suspicion of some per- 
sonal or party aim. In support of this suggestion we simply 
refer to the present volume. 

The Epistles of Peter abound with well-known “ difficult 

passages.” These our author has never sought to evade, and 

' whether his explanations of them be in all cases accepted or 
not, the reader will admire the frankness with which he meets 
them, the impartiality with which he states the views of oth- 
ers, and the modest decision with which he gives his own 
conclusion. 

Beyond all other merits, these Lectures will be valued for 
their clear and uncompromising yet always devout testimony 
to the doctrines of grace. They are exhibited, not as blight- 
ing speculations, but as warm, living, practical realities. Here, 
in a day of many and wide deflections from “ the old paths,” is 
the voice of a trumpet giving no uncertain sound, to summon 
the scattered hosts back to “the good way.” May He who 
makes Himself known as “the Restorer of paths,” own it to 
the glory of His name! 

Whatever may be the reception or influence of this book 
among men, it is “ zszto God a sweet savor of Christ.” In 
parting once more with “a man greatly beloved,” the sadness 


Vili Preface. 


of the thought that his last testimony on earth has now been 
borne, is relieved by the hope that the Church will not will- 
ingly let it die, but will bear it down, shedding abroad the 
fragrance of Immanuel’s name, to the day of “our gathering 
together unto Him,” when “every man shall receive his own 
reward, according to his own labor.” 

PHILIP... SCHAFFE. 


BIBLE Housr, New-York, October 12, 1868. 


ADV ER LT S EM ENCE, 


In this volume, as in that which preceded it on the 
Thessalonian Epistles, the author’s aim has been to furnish 
a commentary on the Greek Text for the use of English 
readers, in which, along with the results of the best criticism, 
ancient and modern, should be retained something of the 
simplicity, directness, and warmth of ministerial address. 
The obvious difficulty of the attempt may be allowed to 
extenuate, in some measure, the defects of its execution. 

Such matters of critical interest as were found less suitable 
for pulpit exposition are subjoined in the notes. These 
include a full statement of the various readings that are 
of any account, though in the delicate department of textual 
criticism the author has scarcely felt himself here called upon 
even to exercise a judgment. In the Translation, accordingly, 
appended to the Lectures, only those variations are taken 
into the text, on which critical editors, for a century past, 
may be said to be agreed, 

It is proper to add, for the satisfaction of the careful 
student, that the works quoted or referred to, besides many 
others not named, have in every instance, with very few ex- 
ceptions, been directly consulted. The following list em- 
‘braces only those of which it seemed necessary to specify the 
particular editions used. 


x ‘ Advertisement. 


EDITIONS OF THE GREEK TEXT. 


ALFORD, vol. iv., 2d ed., London, 1861.* 

BENGEL, 3d ed., Tiibingen, 1753; later decisions from the Gzomzoz, 
Tubingen, 1855. 

BEzA, Cambridge, 1642, (from the ed. of 1598.) 

BLOOMFIELD, 3d ed., London, 1839 ; also the Supplemental Volume, 2d 
ed., London, 1851. 

ἀπ ἢ 3d ed., Basle, 1522 

Ἐπ τ Ἐς Mass., 1809, (from the Leipzig ed. of 1805.) ἡ 

HAHN, Leipzig, 1840. 

τς from the edd. of Géschen, Leipzig, 1832, and Theile, Lepzig, 1852. 

LACHMANN, Vol. ii., Berlin, 1850. 

MEYER, Gottingen, 1829. 

MILL, ed. Kiister, Leipzig, 1723. 

SCHOLZ, from Bagster’s Hexapla. 

STEIGER, Der erste Brief Petri, Berlin, 1832. 

THEILE, 4th ed., Leipzig, 1852. 

TISCHENDORF, 7th esas critical ed., in 2 vols., Lepzig, 1859. [8th large 
crit. edition now in course of preparation, 1868.] 

WELLS, Help for the more clear and easy Understanding of the Holy 
Scriptures, Oxford, 1715. 

The specimen of the evidence in favor of readings is taken from a 
comparison of Lachmann, De Wette, Huther, Wiesinger, and Al- 
ford ; to which has been added a careful collation of the Codex S7- 
naiticus (Sin.) Where the readings of this interesting manuscript 
are given as ἃ prima manu, (Sin'’.,) it will be understood that they 
were afterwards changed by correction, and for the most part con- 
formed to what is called the ¢tertus receptus. 

Syriac, Greenfield’s ed., London, 1828. 

VULGATE, from Stier sae Theile’s Polyglotten Bibel, 2d ed., Bielefeld, 
1849.—The Codex Amiatinus, from Tischendorf’s ed., Uae 1854. 

Original ed. of the Common ENGLISH RESTON 


WICLIF, 

TYNDALE, from Bagster’s Hex- 
CRANMER, apla. 
GENEVAN, 

RHEMISH, J 


BisHops’ BIBLE, fol. ed. of 1584. 

BRETSCHNEIDER, Lexicon Manuale in N. T., 2d ed., Leipzig, 1829. 

Burton, Greek Testament, 4th ed., Oxford, 1852. 

DE WETTE, Die Heilige Schrift, 34 ed., Heidelberg, 1839; and the 
Handbuch zum Neuen Test. (2d ed. of Peter, with Briickner’s Notes, 
Leipzig, 1853.) 


* Of this volume, which came late into my hands, the notes alone have had the benefit ; though 
in the Lectures there will be found numerous coincidences of exegesis and translation. 


Advertisement. xi 


DropaTI, Italian Version and Annotations, Geneva, 1641. 
Dutcu VERSION, from the Netherlands Bible Society’s small ed. of the 

N. T., 1836; and the Annotations from the 4to Gorinchem ed., 1748. 
GREENFIELD, Hebrew JV. T., London, 1831. 

MARTINI, Wuovo Test., vol. v., Florence, 1791. 
Passow, Handwérterbuch der Griech. Sprache, ed. Palm and Rost, 

Leipzig, 1841, etc. 

STEPHENS, Zhesaurus, ed. Valpy, London, 1816-26. 

WAHL, Clavis NV. T., 3d ed., Leipzig, 1843. 

WETSTEIN, (ον. Test. Grecum, Amsterdam, 1752. 
WINER, Grammatik des neutest. Sprachidioms, 6th ed., Leipzig, 1855. 

[7th ed. by Liinemann, 1867.] 

Occasional reference is made to the author’s Revision of IT. Peter, I., 71., 
IIT. Fohn, Fude, and Revelation, published by the American Bible Union 
in 1854; and to Lectures on the Epistles of Paul to the Thessalonians. 
(Carters, New-York, 1860.) 





LECTURES 


ON THE 


hinse PISTLE, OF PEFER: 





INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 





ooo 





Or the Apostle Peter’s history and character we have in 
Scripture fuller and more interesting notices than of any 
other of the original Twelve. To bring these notices, or the 
more important of them, together into one view, will not be 
without its uses in our subsequent work of exposition. 

A native of Bethsaida in Galilee, and by occupation a fish- 
erman, Simon or Symeon,* as his name then was, seems to 
have been a disciple, and in attendance on the ministry, of 
John the Baptist, at the time of his introduction by his bro- 
ther Andrew to the sin-bearing Lamb of God. In that very 
first interview, a significant intimation was given of his future 
eminence, both personal and official, when ‘Jesus, deholding 
him ’—fixing on him an earnest, searching, loving look— 
‘said: Thou art Simon, the son of Jonas: thou shalt be called 
Cephas ; which in Greek is Peter, and in English a Szove, or 
Rock, though, doubtless, no one but the Lord Himself under- 
stood its full import as Simon’s surname. Indeed, it was not 
till after the return of the latter to his home in Capernaum, 
that he became permanently attached to the person of Jesus. 
Awed by the revealed presence of the supernatural in the 
sudden great draught of fishes after a night of fruitless toil, 
‘he fell down,’ in an overwhelming sense, and with a vehe- 
ment confession, of his own unworthiness, ‘at Jesus’ knees,’ 
whose voice then calmed his fears, and called τς to” be 
thenceforth a fisher of men.f 
In this early incident we observe something of what on so 


SOAGESBG ΙΖ 5.2 Petenaieen i. 
Tt John 1 : 35 40-44; Matt. 4: 18, 19; 8:5, 14; Luke 4: 31, 38; 5 : 3-11. 


4 Introductory Lecture. 


many subsequent occasions distinguishes this Apostle—a 
readiness of spiritual insight ; a warm, eager, impetuous tem- 
perament ; an unrestrained yielding to the immediate im- 
pulse ; a prompt and forcible utterance, by word and act, of 
every strong, however varying, conception and emotion. Thus, 
it was Peter, who, having asked and obtained the consent of 
his Master, hastened down from the boat amidst the stormy 
waves, and there ‘seeing the wind boisterous ’—diverting his 
troubled gaze even for a moment from the serene form of 
Jesus to the warring elements—forthwith cried out as one in 
danger of perishing.* He too it was who, in answer to the 
question, ‘Whom say ye that Iam?’ made that second (he 
had made also the first) glorious confession of the common 
faith, which drew forth a blessing on himself, an opening and . 
confirmation of all that was implied in his new name, and a 
promise to him, which was afterward extended to his breth- 
ren, of large authority in the administration of the Church. 
Nor yet was it long before an address of so great favor was 
followed by a rebuke no less signal, when the rash disciple, 
presuming on his relations to his Lord, and prompted, no 
doubt, by an affectionate zeal, as well as by impatience for 
the revelation of Messiah’s throne, and of his own reward as 
a prince in the kingdom, sought to arrest the progress to the 
cross.| The same combination of presumptuous selfconfi- 
dence with loving loyalty is apparent even in the unseasonable 
modesty, which would not that the lowly Saviour should wash 
his feet, succeeded, as the refusal presently was, by an equally 
unwarranted proposal to improve the rite, by extending it to 
his hands and his head.t But, of course, the saddest and 
darkest illustration of the natural defects and infirmity of his 
character was, when, after arrogantly boasting, with whatever 
sincere earnestness, on the way to Gethsemane, of his unal- 
terable devotion, and readiness to die with Jesus, and after 
drawing the sword in His defense on a servant of the high- 
priest, he the very same night quailed before the eye of the 
high-priest’s damsel, and, with a persistent and profane cow- 


* Matt. 14 : 28-30. + John 6 : 68, 69; Matt. 16 : 15-23; 19 : 27. 
t John 13 : 6-9. 


Introductory Lecture. 5 


ardice denied that he knew Him. But even in that hour of 
guiltiest agitation it needed but one look of reproachful love 
from the Divine Prisoner, to break his heart into sudden and 
tearful repentance ; and this, too, was just another of those 
swift and violent revulsions of feeling that characterized the 
man.* 

If, however, on that occasion Peter was left to sink deeper 
in sin and shame than any of his brethren, it can as little 
be denied that in other and more honorable respects also he 
was the most distinguished of the number. This might be 
inferred from some things that have already been adverted to, 
and there are not.a few additional circumstances that go to 
confirm the impression. ‘Peter and they that were with 
him ’—‘ Peter with the eleven’—‘ Peter and the rest’—soon 
come to be understood as perfectly natural paraphrases for 
the Twelve Apostles.| Though not the earliest of the disci- 
ples, his name uniformly stands at the head of the apostolic 
list,i however, in other respects, the order may vary; and 
the same position is assigned to him at every mention of the 
select three, who, admitted into the inner circle of their Lord’s 
confidence, were alone suffered to attend Him into the cham- 
ber of death, when He called the ruler’s daughter to life again, 
and alone beheld His glory on the mount, and His agony in 
the garden.§ 

For this place—not of official primacy ; of that the New Tes- 
tament contains not the slightest hint ; but—of priority and 
representative precedence, Peter was indeed well fitted by his 
forward energy and strong self-reliance. And the whole his- 
tory shows that the arrangement was habitually recognized by 
the Lord, and acquiesced in without a murmur by the rest of 
the Apostles. It seems even to have been generally under- 
stood in Capernaum, where the collectors of the temple-tax, 


* Matt. 26 : 33, 35, 69-75 ; John 18: 10; Luke 22: 61. 

+ Luke 8 : 45, (comp. 9 : 32 ;) Acts 2: 14, 37; comp. Acts 5 : 29. 

{ Matt. 10 : 2-4, (πρῶτος Σίμων") Mark 3 : 16-19; Luke 6 : 14-16; Acts 
Tess 

§ Luke 8:51; 9:28; Mark 14: 33, (comp. 13:3-) The other James of 
Gal. 2 : 9 is there named first, on account, probably, of the relations which he 
sustained to the church at Jerusalem. 


6 Introductory Lecture. 


when in doubt as to whether Jesus paid it or not, apply for 
the information to Peter, and he, though apparently without 
authority, answers in the affirmative. It is also worthy of 
note that, on the same occasion, the Master first gently admon- 
ished the ever-ready disciple, and then instructed him to take 
the miraculous coin from the fish’s mouth, ‘and give,’ said 
He, ‘unto them for thee and me.’ Still more significant is it 
that, in warning the Apostles of their great common peril from 
the malice of Satan, and Peter in particular of that fall which 
only the Saviour’s almighty intercession could keep from 
proving fatal, the Lord added a special charge that he, when 
restored, should strengthen his brethren.* The rock might 
be swayed to and fro by these blasts from hell. But from its 
sure foundations no created power should dislodge it. It must 
still remain, a shelter and defense to many. 

On the first day of the week, Peter and John, hearing from 
Mary Magdalene of the disappearance of the Lord’s body, 
hurried off together to the sepulchre. But though John out- 
ran Peter, it was Peter who first ventured in where the angels, 
unseen by him, kept reverent watch. In the message already 
delivered by them to the women, for the Apostles to meet the 
Risen One in Galilee, Peter’s name alone was specified, from 
a gracious consideration for the humbled disciple ; and to him 
first, of all the Apostles, did Jesus show Himself the same day 
that He rose.t Afterward, at the Sea of Tiberias, no sooner 
does Peter understand that He who is seen standing on the 
shore in the early dawn, and at whose word that old miracle 
has now repeated itself, is indeed the Lord, than with his 
usual precipitancy, and regardless of the work in hand, which 
he himself had proposed, he casts himself into the sea, and 
so hastens to the presence of Him whom his soul loved. Of 
that love he then, in presence of his brethren, makes a three- 
fold declaration, in answer to the Lord’s threefold questioning, 
and is thereupon, with an equal reiteration, confirmed in his 
office as a shepherd of Christ’s flock. In the same hour of 
mingled humiliation and joy, his death of martyrdom is sol- 


* Matt. 17 : 24-27; Luke 22 : 31, 32. 
+ Mark 16: 7; Luke 24: 34; John 20: 1-6; 1.-Cor. 15: 5. 


Introductory Lecture. 7 


emnly foreshown. But, dismayed no longer by the prospect 
of coming trial, he, at his Master’s call, steps forth, and follows 
Him.* 

Passing now to the book of the Acts, we there find Peter 
bearing the very part among the disciples, as their leader and 
spokesman, which the Gospels had prepared us to expect. The 
first half of that book is mainly a record of his sayings and 
doings. The curtain rises on the praying company assem- 
bled in the upper room, and Peter is seen standing in the 
midst, arguing the necessity of completing the number of the 
official witnesses of the resurrection. The fiery tongues of 
Pentecost sat on all; but the first formal utterance of the 
newly organized Church—that majestic address, by means of 
which three thousand souls of the congregated Israel were in 
one day gathered into her bosom—was spoken by Peter in 
the name of the Twelve. And so ‘Peter and John went up 
together into the temple at the hour of prayer ;’ but the first 
miracle also was there wrought by Peter’s hand, and by him 
explained in a second effectual testimony to the glory of Jesus 
Christ. Arrested, and brought with his companion before the 
Sanhedrim, with what holy boldness does he repeat the joint 
witness, and, where so lately he had disowned his Master, now 
stand unshaken by all threatenings! TF 

Thus, whether in the internal affairs of the Church, or in 
her outward working, the superior activity of this Apostle, 
and what we may call his social prerogative, as the first 
among his peers, became at once conspicuous, and they 
continued so throughout. His lips pronounced the doom of 
Ananias and Sapphira. With such exuberance and splendor 
did the powers of the world to come manifest themselves in 
his ministry, that the sick were brought forth into the streets, 
and ‘laid on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow 
of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them.’ Again 
arraigned with his brethren, after their common imprison- 
ment by order of the high-priest, and liberation by the angel, 
it is still Peter who, as their acknowledged mouthpiece, pro- 
claimed anew before the exasperated council the resurrection, 


* John 21 : I-20. HeAGES το 13.90.5, 22.2 1A Als) 3:5) At 4564: I-20. 


ὃ L[utroductory Lecture. 


and exaltation as Prince and Saviour to the right hand of God, 
of the Man whom that council ‘ slew and hanged on a tree.’* 

His next appearance—accompanied, as usual, by John— 
is in Samaria, the two associates having been sent down 
thither by the Apostles which were at Jerusalem, as soon as 
it was known that ‘ Samaria’—hated, despised Samaria—‘ had 
received the word of God.’ There, after prayer, and ‘through 
laying on of the Apostles’ hands, the Holy Ghost was given’ 
to the new converts; and there Peter confounded the impiety 
of Simon Magus. We then hear of him ‘passing,’ in the 
fervor of his missionary zeal, ‘throughout all quarters,’ and 
confirming the word that he preached by mighty signs and 
wonders, as in healing the paralytic of Lydda, and raising the 
dead at Joppa.t 

It was during his sojourn at the latter place, in the house 
of Simon the tanner, that the Apostle of the circumcision 
was taught by a heavenly vision, though not without a demur 
on his part, that reminds us of the old Peter of the Gospels, 
not to call any man common or unclean. That lesson he pro- 
ceeded forthwith, and without further gainsaying, to put in 
practice at Caesarea, by receiving into the Church Cornelius 
and his friends through baptism alone—a bold and till then 
unheard-of freedom, which, however, he did not fail to vindi- 
cate, on his return to Jerusalem, against all opposers.t 

In the year 44, Herod Agrippa, seeking to please the Jews, 
cast Peter once more into prison, intending, it would appear, 
to bring him also by and by to a like bloody end with James 
the brother of John. But his hour was not yet come. The 
unceasing prayers made of the Church unto God for her great 
champion were answered in his second miraculous release 
through angelic interposition, and his unexpected return to 
the anxious disciples. The reunion, indeed, was of very short 
duration. He simply ‘declared unto them how the Lord had 
brought him out of the prison ; and then, with a request that 
the same information should be conveyed to the absent breth- 
ren, ‘he departed, it is added, in a tone of reserve which con- 
jecture has tried in-vain to penetrate, ‘and went into another 


* Acts 5 : I-32. Tt Acts 8 : 14-25; 9 : 32-43. 
δ ¢ Acts 10; 11: 1-18. 





Introductory Lecture. 9 


ty 
place. There is, in fact, no further mention of him in the 
apostolic history, except that, some six years later, we find 
him rising up in the Council of Jerusalem, and there reas- 
serting Gentile freedom from the yoke of ordinances.* 

Two or three other points of interest, however, can be 
gleaned from the Epistles. Thus, in the Epistle to the Gala- 
tians Paul expressly tells us that, when he first visited Jeru- 
salem, after his conversion, his object was ‘to see Peter,’ and 
that he then ‘abode with him fifteen days.’ Afterward—at 
the time, as is generally understood, of the council—occurred 
that more famous interview, also referred to in the same Epis- 
tle, at which these representatives of Jewish and Gentile 
Christianity gave to each other the right hand of fellowship, 
and came to a general understanding with regard to their 
respective fields of labor. The one was to go unto the hea- 
then, and the other unto the circumcision ; though this agree- 
ment was by no means intended to forbid either from enter- 
ing his neighbor's province, as circumstances and the interests 
of the common cause might require. Long before that, when 
‘God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a 
people for His name,’ He ‘made choice among the Apostles, 
that the Gentiles, by Peter’s mouth, should hear the word of 
the Gospel, and believe.’ And here we have Peter’s two Epis- 
tles addressed to churches composed mainly of Gentile con- 
verts. In like manner, whether the Epistle to the Hebrews 
was dictated by the Gentile Apostle or not, it is certain that, 
wherever Paul traveled, his Jewish feelings, and indeed the 
law, so to speak, of apostolic missions, led him invariably to 
make the first offer of Christ and His salvation to his ‘ breth- 
ren, his kinsmen according to the flesh, who were Israelites.’ 
Still, the special rule adopted on that occasion for the distri- 
bution of the work was to the effect above stated, and, it may 
be, was not without a perverted influence on the party spirit 
of the times, when one boasted, ‘I am of Paul, and another, 
aot: Ceplias: ἢ 

It need scarcely be said, that these feelings of jealous ri- 
valry were not shared by the noble men whose names were 

*® Acts 12: 1-173 15 : 7- 11. 

ft Gal. 1:18; 2:7-9; Acts 15: 7-14; Rom. 9:3, 43 1 Cor. 1:12. 


IO L[utroductory Lecture. 


thus abused by their followers. When, indeed, they met after- 
ward in Antioch, Peter, in yielding for a time to his fear of 
the Jewish zealots, and withdrawing, in consequence, from in- 
timate association with the Gentile brethren, afforded one 
more painful illustration of his weakness, and subjected him- 
self to Paul’s public and resolute rebuke for his dissimu- 
lation.* But it was the smiting of the righteous by the 
righteous ; and I doubt not that, in the end, it cemented 
their friendship and strengthened their sense of oneness in 
Christ. Most interesting in this regard is Peter’s affectionate 
mention, in the Second Epistle, (3 : 15, 16,) of his ‘beloved 
brother Paul,’ and of the divine wisdom displayed in all his 
writings. Peter’s own familiar acquaintance with these writ- 
ings seems to be implied also in the numerous, perhaps inten- 
tional, coincidences we shall meet with, both of thought and 
expression. 

In the First Epistle to the Corinthians (9: 5) there i$ an 
allusion to Cephas (so Paul generally calls him) as attended 
in his missionary journeyings by his wife. And this, with 
what we have already gathered from Galatians, is really all 
the information we have respecting Peter’s history subsequent 
to the Council of Jerusalem in Α.Ὁ. 50, that can be safely re- 
lied on, unless the correct interpretation of 1 Peter 5 : 13 al- 
lows us to add that, at one time, he traveled as far as Baby- 
lon, and there wrote his First Epistle. 

Various other particulars, to be sure, are supplied by tradi- 
tion; as, that he preached the Gospel to the Jews of Asia 
Minor—was concerned in the founding of the great churches 
of Corinth and Rome—was, for some years, Bishop of An- 
tioch, and, for many more, Bishop of Rome—that, in Rome, 
he again encountered Simon the sorcerer, and brought his 
blasphemous pretensions to a tragical termination—that, at- 
tempting to escape from the city, in the time of the Neronian 
persecution, he was met by the Saviour, bearing His cross in, 
the opposite direction, and told, in answer to the inquiry, 
‘Lord, whither goest Thou?’ that He came to be crucified 
afresh ; that thereupon, Peter instantly retraced his steps, 


* Galatians 2 : 11--14. 


Introductory Lecture. II 


and, declaring himself unworthy to suffer in the same form as 
his Lord, died by crucifixion with his head downward. 

Nothing of all this, however, can be historically verified, 
and most of it is demonstrably erroneous. But certainly 
there is no other reason why we need hesitate to admit, what 
all Christian antiquity affirms, that our Apostle perished at 
Rome, under Nero. And, as the persecution broke out in the 
latter half of the year 64, and the First Epistle speaks not 
only of a depressed condition of the Church (1:6; 3: 16) 
but of a ‘fiery trial’ (4:12, 17) then arising, while the Second 
Epistle solemnly anticipates the writer’s approaching death, 
(1 :13-15,) the same year may be accepted—for neither on 
this point can we speak with full assurance—as the date both 
of Peter’s martyrdom and of the Epistles themselves. That 
he had not arrived in Rome much before that is, with great 
probability, inferred from the absence of any reference to him 
in those Epistles of Paul that were written during the latter’s 
own imprisonment in the imperial city. 


With regard to the genuineness of the canonical writings 
that bear the name of Peter, this, in the case of the First 
Epistle, has been always and universally conceded, except, of 
course, by those who of late years have made it their business 
to doubt about every thing. But as much can not be said for 
the Second. ‘It was directed,’ says one of the most learned 
living scholars of Germany,* ‘ more to the future, (2 Peter 1: 14, 
15,) like a testament to be opened long after the death of the 
testator. To whom it was intrusted, and whether the wishes 
of the writer were rightfully fulfilled, we do not know; but 
we do know that the Epistle found no place in the primitive 
Canon,} which existed in the second and third centuries. . . . 
Subsequently, when the Apostolic authority had disappeared, 
and the new authority of universal councils had not yet 
arisen in its place, no additions to the canon were admitted, 
even although unquestionably authentic. This explains the 
resistance to the acknowledgment of this Epistle when it 
came forth from its obscurity. The first church that had it, 


* Thiersch, Church in the Apostolic Age. London, 1852. 
+ Nor in the Peshito Syriac. 


12 Introductory Lecture. 


and the first teachers that expounded it, were those at Alex- 
andria. But the Church at large was so justly persuaded, by 
its internal worth, both of its genuineness and of its inspira- 
tion, that, when the Canon was rendered complete, in the 
fourth century, this was universally and without difficulty 
received as one of the seven catholic Epistles. And the 
more gigantic the corruptions, and the nearer the judgment 
therein foretold daily become, the more cause has Christen- 
dom to hold fast this sacred document,’ 

You will remember, also, that the Second Epistle, equally 
with the First, expressly claims, on the face of it, to be the 
production of the Apostle Peter, (1:15; 3:1,2;) and were 
the claim a false one, the author must have been an impostor 
of the worst kind. But such an alternative starts difficulties 
of a far more serious sort than any that can be alleged 
against the genuineness from the later admission of the Epis- 
tle into the Canon, or from a supposed diversity of style. 

Both Epistles, indeed, the more they are studied, will the 
more clearly appear to be, in their stirring energy, and in the 
dignity, elevation, and pervading sanctity of their tone, every 
way worthy of the prince of the Apostles. In both, his 
object is, as he himself explains it, (2 Peter 3: 1,) to ‘stir up 
the pure minds’ of the faithful, ‘by way of remembrance,’ to. 
fulfill, to his life’s last hour, the precious trust which his Lord 
had committed to him, of ‘strengthening his brethren,’ by 
comforting them amid their thick-coming sorrows, confirming 
them in the faith and holiness of that Gospel which they had 
received, for the most part, it would appear, from Paul and 
Paul’s followers, but to which the Apostle of the circumcision 
also now sets his glowing 564], and that, by mingling exhorta- 
tion with his testimony that ‘this is the true grace of God 
wherein they stand, (1 Peter 5:12,) preparing them for the 
‘crown of glory’ in ‘the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and 
Samour jesus Chuist. {1 Peter's2.45%2 Peter α δὴ 


Of the First Epistle, with which we are now immediately 
concerned, it may further be observed that, being mainly of a 
practical and hortatory character throughout, it is not marked 
by any great strictness of logical arrangement. Less dialectic 


Introductory Lecture. 13 


than many of Paul’s writings, it differs also from the Epistle 
of James in its fuller. recognition of the doctrines of grace, 
and especially in the richness of its allusions to the person, 
and character, and work of the Redeemer. But even these 
topics are introduced, not so much in the way of doctrinal ex- 
position, as for the sake of their direct bearing on the regula- 
tion of the Christian life. 

After the inscription and salutation, (1:1, 2,) the Epistle 
opens with devout thanksgiving to the God and Father of our 
Lord Jesus Christ for the state of high privilege and ex- 
pectation to which believers are raised through the resur- 
rection of Jesus Christ from the dead, (1: 3-12.) And then 
this great salvation, in present possession and in certain pros- 
pect, is at once made the foundation of an appeal for universal 
holiness of heart and life, (1:13-2:10.) These general ex- 
hortations are followed by particular counsels for the guidance 
of the faithful in their relations to the world at large and the 
civil authorities, (2: 11-17,) as well as in the more intimate 
associations of the household and the Church, (2 : 18-5 : 9 ἢ) 
the whole being interspersed, however, with passages of a 
more general complexion, and especially with many words of 
tender and animating encouragement to such as suffer for 
righteousness’ sake. The Epistle closes with a benediction, 
or, as 5: 10 is frequently read, with an assurance of the divine 
favor, and a doxology ; a statement of the writer’s design in 
the preparation of the letter ; two or three messages of greet- 
ing ; and a renewed benediction, (5 : 10-14.) 

Minor points of connection and detail can better be noted 
in the course of the exposition. 


LECTURE OL. 


TEE Te Kites alee 


‘PETER, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout 
Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, elect according to the fore- 
knowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obe- 
dience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and 
peace, be multiplied.’ : 


Tue writer announces himself by the name, which many 
precious recollections had already endeared to the churches 
as well as to himself, and by his official rank as ‘ az Apostle of 
Fesus Christ’—one of those extraordinary messengers or am- 
bassadors of the Anointed Saviour, who, having ‘ companied’ 
‘with Him during the days of His flesh, were fitted and ‘ ordain- 
ed to be witnesses of His resurrection’—whose commission, 
emanating directly from the Lord, and attested by ‘signs and 
wonders, and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost,’ con- 
stituted them authoritative expounders in all the world, to 
Jew and Gentile alike, of Christ’s doctrine and law, ‘stewards 
of the mysteries of God,’ ‘ wise master-builders’ on the one 
divine foundation, the unerring guides and rightful rulers of 
the entire ‘household of faith.’* 

Claiming, therefore, in the inscription of the Epistle, to be 
‘an Apostle of Fesus Christ, he virtually claims for what is to 
follow the reverent regard and loving obedience of all who 
call Jesus Lord. Equally apparent, however, is the absence 
of all pretension to superiority to his brethren in the same 
office. We find here just as little of the lordly arrogance as 
there is of the mock humility of those who have since boast- 
ed of being his successors. 


A/S OAs 22 ΠΙΟΡ 2: 1 Corns) ἼΘΙ; ΔῈ 1: (Grill, 0: ito) 


Lecture [1,—Chapter 1 +1, 2. 15 


The letter is addressed to ‘ the strangers scattered through- 
out Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia ; and the 
order in which these provinces are named has been thought* 
to imply the easterly position of the Babylon mentioned in 
5 : 13, and from which the letter appears to have been written. 
But the argument has a very slender foundation. The series 
commences, it is true, from the north-east of Asia Minor, but 
it does not follow a regular course westward, Cappadocia 
lying to the east of Galatia, and Bithynia to the east of the 
proconsular Asia. 

A more important question is, whether the believing 
‘ strangers, spoken of as ‘ scattered throughout’ these regions, 
were of Jewish or Gentile extraction ; and a few words are 
necessary on this point. ᾽ 

Among the ‘ Jews, devout men, out of every nation under 
heaven, who beheld the wonders of Pentecost, there were 
found dwellers in ‘ Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia.’ Some 
of these, it may be presumed, were of the large number on 
that occasion added to the Church through the preaching of 
Peter, and they must have carried the Gospel with them on 
their return to the land of their sojourning. It is known, in- 
deed, that large numbers of Jews were resident in those 
quarters ; and this of itself might lend probability to the tra- 
dition formerly referred to, that the missionary labors of our 
Apostle extended to them. But, on the other hand, there is 
scarcely any thing in either of his Epistles that can be regard- 
ed as certainly favoring the idea of the writer having been at 
some time personally present with these churches ;f while 
several things show plainly that he was not their founder, 
and that one principal motive in his now writing to them was 
his desire to establish them in the truth which they had 
learned from others.t In the Second Epistle he names 
Paul as one of their previous instructors, and the Book of the 
Acts makes it probable that to Paul’s agency, immediate or 
indirect, the churches of Asia Minor, in general, owed their 


* As by Bengel, Huther, Alford. 
+ 2 Peter 1:16 has been cited as looking that way. 
τ Retenen i225) 5) 5:12: 2. ΕΟ 2: 15. 


16 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


origin. Converted Jews there no doubt were in most, if not 
in all, of them. But that in those, with which we are here 
concerned, the Gentile element largely predominated, seems 
to be clear enough from many passages in this Epistle.* 

What has led not a few commentators, both ancient and 
modern,} to adopt the opposite view, is this very phrase in 
the verse before us, ‘strangers scattered, or, according to the 
more exact rendering, sojourners of the disperston.$ Now, the 
latter of these expressions—the Dispersion—was in familiar 
use to describe the state of the dispersed Jews living out of 
Palestine, or as the designation of the Jews themselves so 
dispersed ; as when the inquiry arose among our Lord’s hear- 
ers, ‘Will He go unto the dispersed among the Gentiles ?’ 
literally, the dispersion of the Grecks.§ And so James writes 
‘to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad ; or, zhich 
are in the dispersion.|| 

The Greek for the other word, stranger or Sojourner, occurs 
again inch. 2 : 11, and in Heb. 11 : 13, in both of which 
places our version translates it pz/grim. Everywhere it im- 
plies, not so much the fact of being a stranger, as that of alien 
residence with strangers.** 

So that the whole phrase, sojowrners of the dispersion, or 
dispersed sojourners,t} represents a people away from home, 
scattered from their proper centre, and dwelling for the time 
in foreign parts; a description that does, undoubtedly, apply 
to all Jews living in heathen lands. But this by no means 
proves that it is here employed to distinguish a particular 
class of such, Jews—those of them, namely, that believed in 
Christ ; espécially when every other indication in the Epistle 
points to a Gentile origin of these communities, and when 
even in that case the single phrase now under consideration 


* See on 1:14, 18, 20; 2:10; 3:63 4:3, 4. 

7 As Jerome, Calvin, Bengel, etc. 

t Παρεπιδήμοις διασπορᾶς. 

§ John 7 : 35, (τὴν διασπορὰν τῶν Ἑλλήνων.) 

|| James 1 : 1, (τᾶις ἐν τῇ διασπορᾷ.) Comp. the Septuagint, Deut. 30 : 4; Ps. 
147 :23 Isaiah 49: 6; Judith 5 : 19, etc. 

** It is found in the Septuagint, Gen. 23 : 4, and Ps. 39 : 12 for awin. In 
these two instances our version has sojourner. 

tt For dvacropde is best taken as a genitive of apposition. 


Lecture I1—Chapter τ: τ, 2. 17 


rather gains, than loses aught, in appropriateness and beauty. 
For what are all faithful Christians in this world, no matter 
what be their earthly lineage, but dispersed sojourners— the 
children of God scattered abroad’ through all regions of the 
earth, and all the generations of time? They are in the 
world, but they are not of it. ‘The world knoweth them not.’ 
They feel themselves to be ‘strangers and pilgrims,’ and such, 
also, was the confession of the fathers, even of those who lived 
and died in Palestine. ‘Here they have no continuing city, 
but they seek one to come.’ Their ‘citizenship is in heaven.’ 
‘The Jerusalem which is above . . . is the mother of them 
all; and to her bosom they long to ascend, and there rest 
from their wanderings.* 

There is, besides, on this same view, a special fitness, I 
conceive, and agreeableness to what we have seen to be one 
main design of the Epistle, in the Jewish Apostle doing thus 
early, and in the inscription itself, what we shall afterward 
find him doing again and again.f I mean, transferring the 
old Hebrew titles and associations, only raised now to a far 
higher and more spiritual significance, to that great catholic 
Church of the new dispensation, in which ‘there is neither 
Jew nor Greek.’t Nor are there wanting other instances of 
the kind in the second verse here. 


‘Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, 
through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprink- 
ling of the blood of Fesus Christ. 

These words complete the Apostle’s description of those 
to whom he directs his letter, and they furnish certainly a 
’ glorious offset to whatever was trying and severe in their 
earthly lot. Let us carefully consider them. 

The first remark I have to make respects the arrangement 
of the sentence. In the original, the word ‘elect’ belongs to 
the preceding verse, thus: ‘ Peter, an Apostle of Fesus Christ, 
to the elect sojourners.§ So far was the practical Peter, any 


APOE 3152.5) τ ΠΟΙ Ὁ -ansekleb, 11); 13) 17.: 14.: Phils ὍΥτΙΖΕ 3\Gal..4 320; 
Ἷ See on ch. 2 : 5,0, etc. + Galatians 3 : 28. 
§ Sin. reads : ἐκλεκτῦις κ αὶ παρεπίδημοις, to the elect and sojourners. 


18 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


more than the argumentative Paul, from being ashamed of 
the word, or afraid to use it, that he sets it in the very fore- 
front, as marking that precise point in the condition of his 
brethren, which was the most prominent and important in his 
own estimation, and lay, in fact, at the basis of all his subse- 
quent congratulations and exhortations. In comparison with 
that, the hardship of their worldly circumstances disappears, 
and so the second verse proceeds in immediate connection 
with it, as if nothing whatever had intervened. And what, 
you may well ask, was this grand, fundamental, overshadow- 
ing privilege ? 

It might be said that, just as the tribes of Israel had always 
been spoken of in their national capacity as a chosen people, 
so now the Church of Christ received the same name for a 
similar reason, as a visible organization occupying the place 
of the selected, segregated Israel of God. And the statement 
would be a true one, so far as it goes. For what have we, in 
the way even of mere external opportunity and advantage, that 
we do not ultimately owe to sovereign, absolute grace? And 
nothing less than that surely can be meant, when our outward 
standing in the Church, with all the influences and means of 
salvation thereto belonging, is ascribed to an act of divine 
election. But neither must it be forgotten that, even in re- 
gard to the national Israel, there was a sense in which ‘ they 
were not all Israel which were of Israel: neither, because they 
were the seed of Abraham, were they all children.’ Within 
the election there was still another election, in virtue of which 
Isaac, not Ishmael, was the heir of the promise, and Jacob, 
not Esau, the object of love, and some, in gospel times, attained 
to the righteousness which is of faith, while ‘the rest were 
blinded.’* 

Now, of which of these two sorts of election our Apostle 
was here thinking, whether of that which secures merely a, 
visible connection with the visible Church, or of that which 
takes hold also of saving issues, of this we shall be better able 
to judge when we have looked at what immediately follows 
respecting the rule according to which, the means through 


* Romans 9 : 6-13, 30; II: 5, 7. 


Lecture II—Chapter τ: 1, 2. 19 


which, or the sphere in which, and the results toward which, 
this election works. 

First, the vz/e is the divine foreknowledge: ‘ Elect accord- 
ing to the foreknowledge of God the Father, the scheme of 
redemption in all its parts being ever in Scripture represented 
as flowing from the Fountain of Deity.—Observe, then, that 
the election of our text is not according to previous differ- 
ences of character and moral susceptibility in the objects of 
it, nor according to their actual faith and repentance, nor yet 
according to God’s foreknowledge of these things in them. 
We shall presently find that, instead of originating in such 
diversities, it ends in them. The one spring from which it 
starts, and from which the life-giving streams can never be 
sundered, is ‘ the foreknowledge of God the Father? And when 
was it that God first foreknew? Must we not say that on 
these scattered sojourners, and on every individual of them, 
the paternal eye of God rested ‘ from everlasting, from the be- 
ginning, or ever the earth was?’* In His eternal counsels, He 
looked upon them with a favorable regard which nothing in 
them can explain, and all whom He thus foreknew became 
the subjects of a gracious predestination.t In other words, 
the whole and sole cause of the election was in God Himself. 
As He ‘chose from the beginning’—‘ before the foundation of 
the world’—so the law of His choice, the only law that His 
own word acknowledges, is ‘the good pleasure of His will.’+ 
Says the great theologian of the Reformation: ‘Everywhere 
in Scripture is that purpose of God, on which, as on a founda- 


* Proverbs 8: 23. 

t+ Rom. 8: 29. Iam aware that foreknowledge is very generally taken here and 
elsewhere in the sense of predetermination, and that almost all commentators on 
Acts 2: 23, for instance, keep repeating one after another that there it is synony- 
mous with the ‘ determinate coursel.’ It is admitted, also, that, in one aspect of the 
matter, the divine prescience does ultimately rest on the divine purpose, and is 
inseparable from it, if, indeed, the two are not better regarded as identical. Still, 
as Scripture everywhere, and most of all in speaking of God, humbles itself to 
the manner of men, and as with us foreknowledge and foreordination differ as 
really in the ideas conveyed, as they do in etymology, the verbal distinction 
should by no means be given up, as it is by many, in translation. Compare on 
Vv. 20. 

¢ 2 Thessalonians 2:13; Ephesians 1: 4, 5. 


20 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


tion, our salvation rests, set in opposition to any merit of 
ours.’* 

Thus far, at least, it is obvious, as the writer probably inten- 
ded it should be, Peter is in strictest accordance with Paul. 
Election is according to foreknowledge; and that, whether 
the particular election spoken of results in the bestowal merely 
of present church privileges, or of eternal life, with whatever 
is necessary in order to that. On the latter point, however, 
we get clearer light from what is said, 

Secondly, of the means through which, or the manner in 
which, this election works : ‘ through, or ‘ cn,’ } ‘sanctification of 
the Spirit,’ a sanctification, that is, a separation, cleansing, 
and consecration to holy service, effected by the Holy Spirit, 
and, therefore, a far deeper and more thorough process than 
any of those Levitical rites which ‘sanctified’ only ‘to the 
purifying of the flesh. This must surely involve something 
more than simply an outward standing in the visible Church. 
Here are divine forces in operation, as when the same all- 
subduing Spirit brooded of.old over chaos. And, accordingly, 
you will observe, 

In the third place, that the results toward which election 
looked, and which are thus realized through the intervention 
and agency of the Spirit, are of proportionate grandeur and 
value : ‘ wzto obedience, and sprinkling of the blood of $esus 
Christ’ Yor you must again remark that the several clauses 
of the second verse are each dependent on the one word ‘ elec?’ 
The sojourners were ‘ elect according to the foreknowledge of 
God the Father; as the measure and rule of the divine choice ; 
elect ‘in sanctification of the Spirit, as the medium of its 
working ; elect ‘unto obedience, and sprinkling of the blood of 
¥esus Christ; as the blessed issue of all. 

By ‘ obedience’ here I understand, at least primarily, obedz- 
ence to the truth, according to the definition of v. 22 of this 
chapter—what Paul calls ‘ the obedience of faith’—that great 


* Calvin: ‘Scriptura autem ubique Dei propositum, in quo fundata est nostra 
salus, meritis nostris opponit.’ 

Tt ἐν. 

t Heb. 9: 13.—See Lectures on Thessalonians, Ὁ. 544, note 4, for other explana- 
tions of the present phrase. 


- 


Lecture [1—Chapter 1 11, 2. 21 


act of the regenerate soul, by which it yields itself unto God, 
and works ‘the work of God’ by ‘believing on Him whom 
God hath sent.’* And thereupon at once follows, what is, 
therefore, named in closest connection with it, the ‘ sprinkling 
of the blood of Fesus Christ, whereby the elect pass from 
under the law and the law’s curse into the shelter of the new 
and eternal covenant. This is that ‘blood of sprinkling’ 
which the writer to the Hebrews (12: 22-24) also mentions 
last among the wonders and the immunities of Mount Zion, 
it being in itself the sole and sufficient guarantee of all the 
rest. In both places there seems to be a direct reference to 
the scene at Horeb, where the people, having heard ‘all the 
words of the Lord, and all the judgments,’ pledged themselves 
to universal obedience ; and then ‘ Moses took the blood’ of 
burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, ‘and sprinkled it on the 
people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the 
Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.’ + 

At so much pains, then, you perceive, is our Apostle, in the 
very inscription of his Epistle, to assure his brethren that, in- 
stead of shrinking from any of the faithful followers of his 
own Master, merely because they were of the Gentiles, he 
too, now joyfully hailed all such as the true ‘circumcision, 
which worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, 
and have no confidence in the flesh. ἢ 

It is proper to add here that, while I have explained the 
two last clauses as descriptive of the sinner’s experience at 
his first entrance into the fellowship of Christ, there is noth- 
ing to hinder us from extending the application of them to 
his whole subsequent course in the divine life—his progres- 
sive inward sanctification by the Spirit, the growing stead- 
fastness and alacrity of his obedience to all the will of God, 
and the continual ‘sprinkling of his heart from an evil con- 
science’ with that blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, which, 
like the yearly atonement and the daily sacrifice, is ever at 
hand to ‘cleanse us from all sin.’§ All this likewise, together 
with its consummation in the perfect state, was indeed em- 


* Rom. 6:13; 16:26; John 6:29. t Exodus 24 : 5-8. 
t Philippians 3 : 3. ΔΕΡΙΘΌΣ ΤΟΙ ΖΦ; Tajohn ts 7. 


23 Lectures on the First Epistleeof Peter. 


braced in the scope of the Divine election. In the words, 
already alluded to, of another Apostle, which Peter may have 
had in his eye when he wrote these verses, ‘God hath from 
the beginning chosen you to salvation, through sanctification 
of the Spirit, and belief of the truth. . . . He hath chosen 
us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should 
be holy and without blame before Him in love: having pre- 
destinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ 
to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will. . 
For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be 
conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the 
First-born among many brethren. Moreover, whom He did 
predestinate, them He also called: and whom He called, 
them He also justified: and whom He justified, them He 
also glorified.’* 


After the inscription comes, as usual, the simple, but most 
beautiful and comprehensive, apostolic salutation, ‘Grace unto 
you, and peace’—the favor of God, and whatever happiness 
that confers |—‘ de multiplied’—the former manifested still 
more and more in the continuance and enlargement of the 
latter. This variationt of Paul’s ordinary formula is in keep- 
ing with the writer’s frequent, careful recognition of the true 
Christian standing of his readers. Seeing them already in 
possession of the grace and peace of God, he needed only to 
pray for their uninterrupted and enlarged enjoyment of these 
blessings. 


I close with a few words of inference and application. 

1. In the first place, let no one make himself unhappy in 
the thought that the open assertion of the Divine sovereignty 
in the plan and processes of redemption will tempt any honest, 
intelligent man to a licentious life; and as for dishonest, or 
simply ignorant, perversions of the truth, for neither of these 
does the truth hold herself responsible. Be it ever remem- 
bered, that they who are chosen to éternal life are no less 


* 2 Thess. 2:13; Eph. 1: 4,5; Rom..8: 29, 30. 
t See Lect. on Thess. pp. 27, 28. 
$ Repeated in the Second Epistle, and adopted by Jude. 


- 


Lecture [1—Chapter 1 +1, 2. 23 


chosen to holiness, and that in no other way than by ‘re- 
pentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus 
Christ’ *—those immediate, urgent duties of every man, and 
to which all are alike summoned—can any man make sure of 
his own election. To use the exquisite language of Arch- 
bishop Leighton: ‘Though the mariner sees not the pole- 
star, yet the needle of the compass, which points to it, tells 
him which way he sails: thus, the heart that is touched with 
the loadstone of Divine love, trembling with godly fear, and 
yet still looking toward God by fixed believing, points at the 
love of election, and tells the soul that its course is heaven- 
ward, toward the haven of eternal rest.’ + Ὰ 

2. Again; how great a thing is the work of human salva- 
tion, in which all the persons of the Godhead are here repre- 
sented as concurring—the Father, loving us from eternity ; 
the Son, descending in the fulness of the time to die for us ; 
and the Holy Spirit, flying forth to breathe on our dead na- 
ture, that it may live! 

3. But then, observe, in the third place, that it is not enough 
that the depths of heaven are thus stirred with sympathy for 
man—not enough, that the sacrifice of Calvary is finished ; 
not enough that the rushing, mighty wind of Pentecost has 
proclaimed the new dispensation of .grace. For yow all is 
still in vain, unless, submitting yourselves individually to these 
blessed influences, you obey the Gospel call, and receive the 
baptism of blood. 

4. Lastly, what a consolation is it to the children of God, 
in all their dispersions, that, however humble their earthly 
condition may be, and whatever, at any time, the world’s ha- 
tred of them, the heart of their heavenly Father is ever 
toward them, with a love that changes not! From the valley 
of their humiliation, each one of these sojourners, as he lifts 
his eye to Him who ‘inhabiteth eternity, can say, in all hu- 
mility and confidence, with David: ‘Thou tellest my wander- 
ings: put Thou my tears into Thy bottle: are they not‘in 
Thy book ἡ ᾧ 

* Acts 20: 21. 

+ On the principal topics of this Lecture, comp. Lect. on Thess. pp. 55-65 
and 542-550. 

{ Isaiah 57:15; Psalm 56:8. 


WECTORE Jie 


ἔξεςςτ ς--ς 


. ΕΘ Wie el 


‘BLESSED be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to 
His abundant Mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection 
of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and 
that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of 
God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.’ 


‘Ir any man be in Christ, he is a new creature’ *—fur- 
nished with new powers, and impelled by new motives, to fit 
him for the new service to which he is called, and the new 
destiny to which he is appointed. This necessity of a gra- 
cious state and endowment in order to the discharge of a 
Christian’s present duty, and the attainment of his future 
blessedness, is very plainly implied throughout the Epistle ; 
but it is taught with peculiar vividness in the first twelve 
verses of this chapter, which, in one gushing strain of thank- 
ful adoration and noble eloquence, set forth what God had 
already done for the sojourners, and the transcendent great- 
ness and glory of the salvation, within whose securities they 
had already entered, as the foundation on which must rest all 
ethical instruction in the school of Christ—all true and ac- 
ceptable obedience in the household of faith. 

The writer, you remember, had just spoken with emphasis, 
in the inscription of the letter, of ‘the purpose of God ac- 
cording to election, 7 as realized and manifested in the case 
of these scattered converts. And so here, when about to de- 
scribe more at large their actual condition and prospects, he 
begins, as Paul does in writing to the Ephesians and once to 
the Corinthians, by summoning them to unite with him in 


cal 4 (Cove ΒΥ 17: t Rom. 9:11. 


Lecture [I].—Chapter 1 : 3-5. 25 


celebrating the Divine source of all spiritual blessings :* 
‘ Blessed’—adored} and praised—‘ be the God and Father of 
our Lord Fesus Christ. 

Such was the loftier and dearer title, under which the be- 
liéving Jew also now loved to worship the God of the cove- 
nant—the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob. It 
is very frequently modified in translation thus: God and the 
Father t—God who is the Father—God, even the Father$—of 
our Lord Fesus Christ; and no doubt the original might 
mean what these formulas express.|| But the other equally 
grammatical construction I consider preferable in this in- 
stance, as conveying more fully the precious truth, that the 
relations of the Church to God are not only established by 
her Lord and Saviour, but have their ground and guarantee 
in “zs own relations to God. She is Christ’s, and ‘ Christ is 
God’s.’** In the work of redemption He acted under an im- 
mediate Divine authority, and He did that which pleased the 
Father. Everywhere in Scripture is this personal and official 
subordination of the Son, in the economy of grace, asserted 
or assumed.jt As ‘the God and Father, therefore, ‘of our 
Lord Fesus Christ’—as sending Him forth on His mission of 
saving love, and evermore delighting in the fulness and the 
triumph of His filial obedience—only as thus revealed in and 
through the Word made flesh, does the Supreme Being draw 
to Himself the confidence and confessions of man’s guilty 
heart, and the praises of the redeemed. 

If now it be asked, And what moved the infinitely Holy 
-and Blessed One to concern Himself about the worthless and 
the lost? the answer is, Nothing but the benignity of His 








* Compare 2 Cor. 1:3, and Eph. 1 :3. 

+ εὐλογητὸς, in the New Testament used only of God. 

+ English version at Col. 1:3; and to this Ellicott adheres at Eph. 1:3. 

§ English version at Rom. 15:6; 2 Cor. 1:3. 

|| That the phrase, ὁ Θεὸς καὶ πατήρ-εε. 776 who is God and Hather—occurs often 
without a specifying genitive, (the argument urged by Meyer at Rom. 15:6,) by 
no means proves that, in the full expression, as we have it here, the genitive is 
dependent only on the second noun. 

ΕΣ Τ GOT. (310.23. ’ 

tt See the Psalms, passim: (22 : 13 45:73 89 : 26, εἴς. ;) Matt. 27 : 46; John 
20:17; Eph.1:17; Heb. 1:9; Rev. 3 : 12,21; etc.; and comp. the Revision 
of Rev. 1: 6, note J 


26 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


own nature, and that toward the miserable and the undeserv- 
ing. ‘According to His abundant’—or great*——‘ mercy, says 
Peter, again, though perhaps unconsciously, echoing the 
Gentile Apostle. Says the latter to Titus (3:5): ‘ Accord- 
ing to His mercy He saved us.’ And in other places—as in 
that Epistle to the Ephesians (1:7; 2:7) which ours in so 
many points reflects—he speaks of ‘the riches—the exceed- 
ing riches—of His grace.’ Mercy, then, absolutely free and 
sovereign, was at once the motive and the measure of the 
Divine action. And, to know how ‘great’ the mercy was, we 
have but to consider the manner and the fruits of this gra- 
cious interposition in our behalf. These are brought before 
us in the text with equal distinctness and beauty. 


‘ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Fesus Christ, 
zwho according to His great mercy, and in pursuance of the 
plan which He had devised from eternity, ‘ begat us again... 
through} the resurrection of Fesus Christ from the dead, 

The reference is to the actual regeneration of the indi- 
vidual believer, in the day of his conversion,¢ through the 
quickening energy of the mighty power, which wrought in 
Christ when God raised Him from the dead ;§ that resur- 
rection not merely being the Divine confirmation of all the 
other announcements and promises of the Gospel, but still 
perpetually manifesting its own reality and force, wherever a 


dead soul awakes to newness of life. Or perhaps the writer’s. 


thought was of the virtual regeneration of all the faithful in 
that one crowning fact of Christ’s earthly history. For you 
must have noticed how common it is in the New Testament 
to find the Church spoken of as having died when Christ 
died ; as having risen, when He rose; and as now seated 
with Him in the heavenly places.|| I think it not improbable 
that our Apostle here glances at this favorite doctrine of Paul. 


* The English version nowhere else renders πολύς abundant. 


+ dvayevyyjoac... διά. Peter alone of New Testament writers uses this verb, 
here and at verse 23. “ 
t+ Comp. James 1:18; Tit. 3:5; 1 John 5:1, etc. ὃ Eph.-1 : 19, 20. 


|| Comp. the historic time of such texts as Rom. 7:4, Ye were put to death ; 2 
Cor. 5:14, one died... all died, etc. 


eit it tt 


Lecture [1I]—Chapter τ: 3-5. 25 


And, at any rate, his readers could not fail to be reminded of 
words, which had already been addressed by the latter to one 
of their own churches : ‘God, who is rich in mercy, for His 
great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead 
in sins, quickened* us together with Christ—by grace ye are 
saved.’ 

In both passages, you perceive the regeneration of a sin- 
ner is regarded as evidence of the greatness of the Divine mercy, 
and this in respect of the means whereby it is effected—to 
wit, the resurrection from the dead of the Son of God. But 
now consider also the nature of the effect itself, and its sure 
and glorious consequences. 

God alone is the author of it, as truly and as directly as He 
alone created the light. Whatever secondary agency or in- 
strumentality may be employed, they who are the subjects of 
this new birth are ‘born, not of blood, nor of the will of the 
flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.’ They are therefore 
called, by a different title from that which nature confers, the 
‘children of God, being made ‘ partakers of the Divine na- 
ture, and having ‘ put on the new man, which is renewed in 
knowledge after the image of Him that created him ’—‘ after 
God created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.’ 

For you must beware of supposing that any outward re- 
formation of the life, however sudden and striking, however 
extensive, and however permanent, is what Scripture lays 
so much stress upon, as that without which a man ‘can- 
not enter into—cannot see—the kingdom of God.’ This 
is altogether a secret spiritual process, invisible like the 
turnings and courses of the wind, however mighty the 
effects which attest its power, and mark its direction.t It 
is the circumcision of the heart—the taking away the 
stony heart out of the flesh, and giving a heart of flesh. 
Or, to use still another sacred figure, it is the opening 
of ‘the eyes of the heart, and the immediate inshining 
of the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the 


* Eph. 2: 5, 6, (συνεζωοποίησεν.) 

t John 1:12, (τέκνα,) 13; 2 Peter, 1:4; Col. 3:10; Eph, 4:24, (ὁσιότητι 
τῆς ἀληθείας.) . 

t John 3 : 3, 5, ὃ. 


28 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


face of Jesus Christ.* It is, accordingly, described as a 
being ‘delivered from the power of darkness, and trans- 
lated into the kingdom of God’s dear Son; or, as in the 
second chapter of our Epistle, a ‘being called out of dark- 
ness into God’s marvellous light.’ In a word, it is the soul’s 
resurrection from the death of sin and the curse—that ‘ pass- 
ing from death into life, which is watched by all eyes in 
heaven, and which gives joy among the angels of God, because 
a new heir of glory has been born. 

For ‘if children, then heirs. The inference is one to 
which the renewed nature of itself instinctively bounds. You 
recollect how readily the Apostle John also passes from the 
assurance of sonship to the anticipation of a glorious future. 
‘Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet 
appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall 
appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.’ 
And hence, too, the expression in the text: ‘ Who begat us 
again unto a lively hope’ As if he had said: No sooner did 
we ‘receive the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, 
Father, and so come to know ‘the love that God hath to us,’ 
than we found ourselves in a region bright with hope, a hope 
which, like the morning, spreads itself over earth and heaven. 
What evil could befall those whom the Almighty God now 
owned for His sons and daughters ? And what conceivable 
or possible good would He withhold from them 97 

No wonder that Peter calls this ‘a dévely hope, or rather ‘a 
livingt hope” Dead hopes—sickly, dying hopes—are common 
enough among men. But here, at last, is such a hope as be- 
comes the children of the living God. This hope has life in 
itself, and it imparts life, and has life also, eternal life, for its 
object. Even in the dust of the sepulchre blooms this 


* Rom. 2:29; (Deut. 30:6;) Ezek.11: 19; Eph. 1: 18 (τῆς «apdiac—the 


true reading ;) 2 Cor. 4:6; Col. 1:13; 1 John3: 14. 

 ΒΟΤΩ ΘὉ ΤΟ, We ObN 3.:. 2» 4: LO, 

Ἵ ζῶσαν. 
+ ὃ De Wette. The phrase /iving hope is neither ‘a life of hope,’ (Alford,) nor @ 
hope of life (ἐλπίδα ζωῆς---α reading mentioned by Mill as found in one of Ste- 
phens’s manuscripts. It is favored also by the Syriac, and two or three Fathers ;) 
though ἐλπίδα ζῶσαν has sometimes been rendered in the latter sense, and Luther, 
Calvin, and others so explain it. 


Lecture Ill—Chapter 1 : 3-5. 29 


heavenly flower, and over it, as over the living Christ, death 
hath no more dominion.* 

To the resurrection of Christ, indeed, the very existence of 
Christian hope is here traced. ‘If Christ be not raised, your 
faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins,’ and a darkness more 
terrible than that of the grave enshrouds eternity. But when 
the weeping children of God gather to the place where their 
Lord lay, and, behold, it is empty, they look up to where He 
stands afar at the right hand of God, and, calling to mind His 
own dear promise, they say one to another, Because He lives, 
we shall live also.t 

Some,§ accordingly, would even construe the clause thus: 
‘Begat us again to a hope “vzxg—having its life and strength 
—in consequence of the resurrection of Christ. And this, we 
have just seen, contains a great truth. But I prefer, neverthe- 
less, the common arrangement, according to which Christ’s 
resurrection is presented rather as the medium of the regen- 
eration, and then hope as the immediate result of regeneration 
so effected. 


For this reason also the object of the hope is properly 
called ‘ax inheritance; as being the children’s patrimony— 
their birthright. They are ‘heirs of God,’ being ‘joint-heirs 
with Christ ’—the First-begotten of the dead—the First-born 
among many brethren. So secure is the title as vested in 
Him, and so secure the hope that rests on it, as a hope that 
‘maketh not ashamed,’|| that the new birth is here represented 
as having the very same immediate reference to the future 
inheritance as to the present hope itself. To be begotten 
again to this living hope is the same thing as to be begotten 
again to the inheritance.** 

And of this inheritance what great things are spoken! It 
is ‘a rest’ for God’s wanderers—His children’s home. It is 


* Rom. 6: 9. Hale Corey, 17. 

t Matt. 28:6; Acts 7:56; John 14: 19. 

§ GEcumenius, Bengel, Moldenhawer, Steiger, De Wette, and others. 

[Roms S = 1, 20» orsih sulkeve L515. 

** Very few adopt Jachmann’s erroneous connection of v. 4 with the word ope 
in v. 3—hope in an inheritance. 


30 Lectures on the Farst Epistle of Peter. 


‘eternal life’—‘eternal glory’—‘a far more exceeding and 
eternal weight of glory.’ It is ‘a city which hath founda- 
tions ’—‘a kingdom which cannot be moved’—‘the Paradise 
of God’—‘that which is perfect.’ It is to ‘be for ever with 
the Lord’—to ‘see Him as He is’—to ‘be like Him’—to 
‘sit with Him in His throne,’ and follow Him to ‘living foun- 
tains of waters,’ when God shall have ‘ wiped away all tears’ 
from our eyes.” ἢ 

But in vain do we strive to lift our hearts or our imagina- 
tion to any clear and adequate apprehension of what is still a 
hidden mystery. The Apostle himself attempts no descrip- 
tion or inventory of ‘the things which God hath prepared for 
them that love Him. By way merely of implied contrast 
with all the portions that earth can give, he says of the saints’ 
inheritance that it is ‘ zzcorruptible, and undefiled, and unfad- 
ing,t reserved in the heavens’§ It is ‘incorruptible, because, 
in all that pertains, so to speak, to its physical substance and 
constitution, it is absolutely imperishable—subject to no loss, 
or rupture, or derangement. ‘Violence is not heard in that 
land, wasting nor destruction within her borders.’|| It is 
‘undefiled, as being free from every taint or stain of moral 
pollution. There shall in no wise enter into it any thing 
common, and that worketh abomination and a lie.’** It is, 
moreover, ‘wzfading’—unwithering. Ages of ages do not 
impair its beauty. Its tree of life knows no decay. Its pas- 
tures are ever fresh. ‘The river of God’s pleasures’ is ever 
full. ‘The Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and 
thy God thy glory. +} 

And when, finally, it is added, ‘reserved in the heavens, 


* 2 Thess. 1:7; John 14:2; Matt.25:46; 2 Tim.2: 10, (1 Peter 5: 10;) 2 
‘ Cor. 4:17; Heb. 11: 10; 12:28; 1 Cor. 13:10; 1 Thess. 4:17; 1 John 
3:25 Rev. 2:73.35 :215 72175 21 : 4. 

+ 1 Corinthians 2 : 9. 

¢ dudgavrov—found nowhere else in the New Testament—Sin. reads : zzcor- 
ruptible, and unfading, and undefiled. 

§ οὐρανοῖς. Comp. Lect. on Thess. p. 73. Here Sin. reads: ἐν οὐρανῷ, 77: 
heaven. 

|| Isaiah 60 : 18. 

** Rev. 21 : 27—according to the now received reading, and a closer rendering. 


jt Psalm 36:8; Isaiah 60: 19. 


4 


Lecture [I1—Chopter 1 : 3-5. 31 


that at once accounts for, and confirms, all that has been said 
of. its security and its excellence. ‘lz the heavens’—the 
highest and holiest part of God’s creation, inaccessible to 
storms or the foot of foe, where ‘ neither moth nor rust doth 
corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal’* 
—there, where God Himself and the angels dwell, is this in- 
heritance ‘ veserved. Among God’s treasures, under His own 
eye, and within the shelter of His omnipotence, it is /azd up 
and kepi—has been laid up and kept} from the beginning— 
‘prepared from the foundation of the world.’{ And its being 
still kept there implies that the time of possession has not 
yet arrived. The inheritance is ‘reserved in the heavens, the 
fruition of it being yet a future thing. The rest ‘remaineth 
for the people of God’§ This new wine of the kingdom 
God keeps|| to the last. 


And for whom is it kept? For the wise, and the mighty, 
and the noble? For the philosophers and statesmen, the 
kings and conquerors of earth? No, says Peter ; ‘for you,’ ** 
you, the scattered sojourners, strangers and pilgrims; for 
you, the poor of this world—its homeless wanderers, having 
here no certain dwelling-place.f{ And, that all risk of failure 
of the ultimate attainment may be the more utterly precluded, 
the same Almighty love which keeps the inheritance keeps 
also the heirs. If the former is ‘ veserved in the heavens, the 
latter are no less ‘ kept by the power of God through faith unto 
salvation. 

Literally, this is, ‘ Who in the power of God are guarded tt 
The Divine power, by which they are kept, is not any external 


* Matthew 6 : 20. 

+ So the English version translates τηρέω fifty-eight times out of seventy-five. 
(See note g in the Revision of Fude τ; also Lect. on Thess. p. 397.) Here and at 
Col. 1: 5 the perfect participle is employed. 

’¥ Matt. 25:34. (Comp. 2 Peter 2: 17.) 

§ Hebrews 4 : 9. 

|| The same Greek verb is used at John 2: Io. 

** The reading of the English margin, for τέσ, was taken into the received Greek 

‘text from Stephens’s third edition. Later editors have given it up. 

tt James 2:5; 1 Cor. 4:11. 

tt rode ἐν δυνάμει Θεοῦ φρουρουμένους. Comp. the ἐν of Eph. 6:10; 2 Tim. 
ὩΣ, εἰς: 


42 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


force, but a spiritual element in which they live, and which to 
them so abiding is the primary cause of their safety. They 
are thus ‘ guarded, as in a garrison, or strong city with walls 
and bulwarks—amidst the munitions of rocks—from the 
weakness and treachery of their own hearts, and from all the 
malice of earth and hell. ‘They that trust in the Lord are as 
Mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever. 
As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is 
round about His people, from henceforth even for ever.* In 
reality, therefore, they are just as safe, though surrounded by 
the snares and agitations of this present evil world, as their 
inheritance itself in the heavens. 

But as it is ‘ through faith’ that perishing sinners enter this 
fortress and high tower at the first, so faith alone enables 
them still to maintain their position there. What, indeed, is 
faith, but the laying hold on the outstretched arm of God? 
And the feeblest soul that is so upheld cannot perish. It is 
true that the strength to lay hold, and to keep hold, is of 
God; and this truth likewise is embraced in the condensed 
statement of the text. The faith, which is ‘the gift of God, 
remains itself under the perpetual guardianship of His gra- 
cious power ; and thus it is that none is able to pluck the be- 
liever out of the Father’s hand.t The Apostle wrote these 
words from the depth of his own experience, and very proba- 
bly, I think, in distinct recollection of that crisis in his own 
spiritual history, when the merciful Saviour, whom in the 
sudden surprise of fear he denied, prayed for him that his 
faith might not fail. 

Observe now once more the result to which all this tends: 
‘unto salvation —full and eternal deliverance from sin and sor- 
row and death, ‘with eternal glory.{ This, and nothing short 
of this, was the end of the faith of these dispersed children of 
God, and the bright object of their living hope. For this they 





* Isaiah 26 : 1; 33:16; Ps. 125: 1,2. The military metaphor is recognized 
by expositors generally. Comp. the other New Testament places where this 
verb occurs: 2 Cor. 11 : 323 Gal. 3: 23; Phil. 4:7; and, in the Septuagint, 
Judith 3:6; Esdr. 4:56; Wisd. 17 : 16 

t Eph. 2:8; John 10 ::20. 

2 Timothy 2: 10. 


Lecture [1] —Chapter τ: 3-5. 33 


had been chosen from of old ; for this begotten again,* sanc- 
tified by the Spirit—sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ ; 
and for this they were now also daily guarded by the mighty 
hand of God through the perils and trials of life and of death. 


Of this great salvation it is still further affirmed that it was 
even then ‘ready to be revealed in the last time. It had not 
yet appeared. The heirs were still prisoners of hope ; and 
hope that is seen is not hope.t The veil, that hides eternity, 
still hung solemn and impenetrable to mortal gaze. But with- 
in that veil, and on the part of God, all things were ready, 
even to the crowns and sceptres of His lowly and suffering 
children. They but awaited their revelation, when the set 
time should come. And that time is ‘ ¢he last teme’—the end 
of this dispensation of mingled privilege and sorrow—the time 
for which all preceding times are but the preparation—the 
time of ‘songs and everlasting joy.{ Then, indeed, the veil 
shall be lifted and the panorama of glory shall be seen. 


Such, my hearers, is the present high standing and security 
—such the living hope—and such the blessed heritage of the 
children of God. Are they yours? Or have you, according 
to that stern word of Peter to the deceiver of Samaria, ‘ neither 
part nor lotin this matter’?§_ Alas! then, and what have you 
in their stead? Hearts unquickened by any filial yearnings 
toward the Author of your being—a life unshielded by the 
grace and promises of God—the meat which perisheth—the 
water of which a man drinks, and thirsts again—the uncer- 
tainty of riches—the pleasures of sin for a season—the empty 
honors which come from man—these frail tabernacles of the 
flesh—a hope, if not that of the hypocrite, yet at the best 
bounded by the grave—while, for all that is beyond, you have 
no hope.|| Do not, however, so far deceive yourselves as to 

* Very few, however, (Calvin, Steiger, Olshausen,) connect the words ‘wo 
salvation’ —like the words unto a living hope, and unto an inneritance—immediate- 
ly with Jdegotten again. 

{1 John 3 : 2; Zech.9: 12; Rom.8: 24. 

t Daniel 8: 17; Isaiah 35 : 10. 

§ Acts 8: 21. 

|| John 4: 133 5:44; 6:27; 1 Tim.'6:17, {πλούτου ddnddty7t;) Heb. 
ΤΥ ΖΗ: 2 (ΟΣ, 1; 0 5,.,5.,17:; pha 2 212; (Te hess, 45 5.1.2.) 


34 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


suppose that, entering that future world as you have hitherto 
lived in this—unregenerate, unbelieving, unreconciled to God 
by the sprinkling of the blood of Calvary—you shall find xo 
portion there. Τί, in the face of all warnings of earth and 
heaven, you will insist on committing yourselves to a blind 
venture—to a leap in the dark—see ye to it. Scripture speaks 
throughout not more clearly of the coming revelation of glory, 
than it does of a coming revelation of wrath—heaped-up trea- 
sures of wrath which eternity will not exhaust—the sad inhe- 
ritance of darkness and woe. 

But, behold, to you I again preach Christ, as ‘the Lamb of 
God which taketh away the sin of the world,’ and so ‘ delivers 
us from the wrath to come.*  Hearken to the voice that 
speaketh from heaven: ‘ Arise ye, and depart ; for this is not 
your rest—it is polluted.’f Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. 
Go, wash in the fountain of His blood. And in that same 
hour the accumulated blessedness of grace and glory, whereof 
our Apostle wrote to the sojourners of the dispersion—all, all 
will be yours. Standing by the cross and the open sepulchre, 
you too will feel the throbbings of the new life, and through 
your tears of joy you will discern the beaming star which, 
through the mists and storms of time, and amid the crum- 
bling of all the thrones of earth—when every other light in 
the cottages of the poor and in the palaces of kings, has gone 
out in the blackness of darkness for ever—shall still shine on, 
until it guide you to the place where Jesus 15. 

And if, brethren, that heavenly vision has already been 
vouchsafed unto you, you will need no urging to join the 
Apostle in ‘ d/esstng’ Him from whom such blessings flow. 
Having received all, you will not glory as if you had not re- 
ceived it. Your humility will be equal to your gratitude, as 
you ‘give thanks to the Father, which hath made you meet to 
be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.’£ 


* John 1: 29; 1 Thess. 1 : τὸ; 1 Micah 2 : 10, 
ΘΟ εἰσ Colliers t2, 


LECEGRE: LV. 


= 


1 PETER 1 : 6-9. 


‘WHEREIN ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in 
heaviness through manifold temptations: that the trial of your faith, being much 
more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be 
found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: whom 
having not seen, ye love ; in whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye 
rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: receiving the end of your faith, 
even the salvation of your souls.’ 


Hiruerto the Apostle has spoken chiefly of God’s gra- 
cious purpose and actings toward these dispersed strangers 
or sojourners. He now goes on to describe their views and 
feelings in regard to all this. 

Some,* indeed, take the first verb in v. 6 as in the impera- 
tive mood—wherein greatly rejoice, But this makes an abrupt 
and premature transition to the hortative style, and has noth- 
ing of its own to recommend it. ‘It exhorts,’ says Leighton, 
‘in a more insinuating and persuasive manner, that it may be 
so, to urge it on them, that it is so.’ Others,} again, give the 
word the force of a future tense, and connect the sixth verse 
immediately with the end of the fifth, in this way: Wherezi 
—that is, zz which last time—ye shall greatly rejowe. In sup- 
port of this interpretation several things are alleged, which, 
however, appear to me to be insufficient. Thus it is said, that 
in this section of the Epistle the writer’s method is to join 
each successive sentence to the last word of the one preced- 


* Augustine, Macknight, Burton, Trollope, etc. 

7 The Syriac, Clementine Vulgate, (for the Codex Amzatinus retains the pre- 
sent,) Luther, Tyndale, Benson, Brown, Huther, Wiesinger, Alford, etc. It is 
worth noting, also, that Origen (Exhort. ad Mart. 39) actually has the future 
form, ἀγαλλιάσεσθε. 


36 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


ing.* But on examination this will be found to be only par- 
tially true—Then it is supposed that the futurity of the joy 
is here expressly contrasted with the present grief, and that 
the latter is even spoken of as, in its relation to the former, a 
thing of the past.t But the contrast may very well be be- 
tween the present, as a time whose joy is dashed with sor- 
row, and the brighter day that is to come, when ‘ sorrow and 
sighing shall flee away.” The joy, moreover, is not only 
present but continuous and everlasting, whereas the grief can 
scarcely be said to have any prolonged existence. It is buta 
passing taste of sorrow, the next hour forgotten And, finally, 
to object that the Epistle throughout represents this life as 
the season rather of the Christian’s suffering, is plainly to 
overlook such passages as those in the third and fourth chap- 
ters: ‘If ye suffer for righteousness’ sake, happy are ye. . . 
Rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings. 

If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are 
ye ; for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you. . .. 
If any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed ; 
but let him glorify God on this behalf? 

It is true, the expression in the text is a very emphatic one: 
‘ye greatly rejoice, or ‘ye exult § and even this emphasis is 
intensified at v. 8, where yet the future reference is really 
more difficult than in this first instance.|| There, too, how- 
ever, it is claimed by some that ‘the phrases, “a joy unspeak- 
able and full of glory,” are too strong to describe the Chris- 
tian’s habitual feelings in the present state.** But, as we 
have occasion continually to remark, it is not so much ‘the 


* “By means of a relative pronoun,’ adds Pott. 

t On this last point Alford lays the chief stress—dyaAAidoVe. .. ἄρτι λυπηϑέντες. 

1 Isaiah 35 : 10. 

ὃ ἀγαλλιᾶσθε. This verb (ἀγάλλομαι is the classical form) is used by the Sev- 
enty for 5-3 in Ps.2:11; for py in Ps. 40 : 16, etc.; agreeably to which, and 
to the doubtful etymology, ἄγαν ἅλλομαι, (to leap much,) Leighton here speaks 
of ‘this joy, this exulation, and leaping for joy.’ Comp. the Revision of Rev. 19: 
7, note αὶ 

|| As Huther himself seems to feel. 

** Brown, Wiesinger also, and Alford, especially press δεδοξασμένῃ. But nei- 
ther this nor the other points made by Wiesinger can, to my mind, overcome the 
great unlikelihood of the temporal force of ἀγαλλ. being quite different from that 
of ἀγαπᾶτε, and of the two participles dependent on itself. 





Lecture IV.—Chapter τ: 6-9. Ὁ 


measure of actual and ordinary attainment’ that regulates 
apostolic descriptions of the new man in Christ Jesus, ‘as 
what is through divine grace attainable, and in itself accord- 
ant with the spirit of faith and hope.’* 

Let it also be observed, that, strong as the language is, it 
is much the same as that employed by our Lord in announc- 
ing the duty and privilege of His disciples, when in just such 
circumstances of outward trial as those in which the sojourn- 
ers now found themselves: ‘ Rejoice,’ He had said, ‘and be 
exceeding glad,’ or erw/¢t ; for it is the very word that occurs 
in our text. And so of the-Man of Sorrows Himself it. is 
recorded that, on one occasion, when contemplating the sove- 
reign condescension displayed in the dispensation of grace, 
He ‘ rejoiced ’—er/ted—‘in spirit, + and that while the bur- 
den of the curse still pressed upon Him, 

There are even many facts in our ordinary human expe- 
rience, that render quite conceivable this triumph of the soul 
over all surrounding tribulations and distresses. What cares 
the patient, toiling man of science for the incredulity and 
jeers of his neighbors, or the vexations of poverty, when first 
the obscurity and meanness of his lonely chamber are lighted 
up by the flash of some great discovery ? How superior to 
threats and discouragements of every kind was the mighty 
heart of Columbus, as he calmly forced his way through the 
veil of waters toward this unseen world! How far is the 
fond mother from repining at—how little is she conscious of 
—her own bodily exhaustion, long as she may have watched 
with sleepless anxiety by the sick-bed of her child—ever hop- 
ing against hope—when at last she is assured that the crisis 
is past, and she, so to speak, ‘receives her dead raised to life 
again !t Nay, how often has the bitterness of death itself 
been overcome to the soldier on the battle-field, and the pa- 
triot on the scaffold, by the silent anticipation of the freedom 
and glory which their agonies secured for the country they 
loved! And need we, then, wonder, if the confessors of Jesus 
have gone singing to the stake, and their shout of victory has 
been stifled only by the flames into which they sank ? 


* Lect. on Thess. Ὁ. 350. + Matt. 5:12; Luke 10: 21, (ἠγαλλιάσατο.) 
¢ Hebrews 11 : 35. 


38 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


For consider, I pray you, the sources of ¢hezr joy, as these 
are indicated by the words before us. ‘ Wherein, says Peter, 
‘ye exult’—in what? Not, as I conceive, zz the last time, 
mentioned in the fifth verse, whether viewed as the period of 
future triumph, or as itself the object of a present joyful 
hope ;* but in that general state of gracious privilege, secu- 
rity, and expectation, which had previously been described— 
‘the whole complex sense,’ as Leighton expresses it, ‘ of the 
_ preceding verses, In other words, these ancient converts ex- 
ulted, as they had good reason to do, in all that the great mercy 
and power of God had already done, were now doing, and 
were engaged still to do, for them—in their regeneration, their 
safe keeping, and their certain, speedy introduction to the 
glorious inheritance of His children. 


These various blessings, moreover, were every one secured 
to them only through the mediation of Jesus Christ, and ac- 
cordingly you are now to mark how it is in the meditation of 
His person, that this tide of joy rises highest, and swells to 
the overflowing of the whole renewed nature. ‘ Whom hav- 
ing not seen, ye love,’ for, where there is no love for Christ, 
there can be no rejoicing in Him, or on account of Him. 
But, on the other hand, there is always a sense of joy in the 
love of any worthy object, and, when the love is known to be 
reciprocal, the joy is far more than doubled. In the present 
case both conditions of a joyful love existed, and in the high- 
est possible degree. or surely there is not on earth, nor in 
heaven, another being so ‘altogether lovely’ as Jesus Christ, 
nor can any love be compared to that with which He loves 
His own. Basking fn the sunshine of that love, and reflect- 
ing something of its ardors from their own hearts toward the 
glorious Source of it, the suffering saints might well forget 


* Though this reference has been adopted by many, besides those named on 
p. 36, notes 1, 2, 3, as by CEcumenius, Theophylact, Rosenmiiller, etc. The 
Dutch Annotations construe the pronoun with God, as named in v. 5, 2 whom, 
etc.; Hensler and Penn with salvation of that verse, supplying the word ching 
(πράγματι) to the neuter pronoun. 

+ Apparently translating Calvin: ‘Articulus 7 guo refert totum illud com- 
plexum de spe salutis in ceelis reposite.’ Comp. ch. 4:4; also Lect. on Thess. 


pp. 478-9, 546. 


Lecture IV—Chapter 1 : 6-9. 39 


their sorrows, and the world’s frowns. ‘My Beloved is mine, 
and I am His’*—in this one calm conclusion—this deepest 
consciousness—of the believing soul is an inexhaustible foun- 
tain of joy. 

It is mentioned also as an honorable distinction of these 
disciples, that they loved the Saviour whom they had ‘ zoz 
seen, or, as the word used to be read, without kvowingt 
Him—knowing Him, that is, as Peter had known Hin, per- 
sonally and ‘after the flesh. ὁ They could but imagine— 
they could not from the records of their own observation re- 
call—the meekness and gentleness of His looks and ways, 
the gracious tones of His voice, or the melting, subduing, 
radiance of His eyes. They had not been by, when he ‘took’ 
the little children ‘in His arms,$ put His hands upon them, 
and blessed them ; or when the ‘woman which was a sinner’ 
was not only suffered to ‘wash His feet with tears, and wipe 
them with the hairs of her head, and kiss His feet, and anoint 
them with the ointment,’ but left the holy presence pardoned 
and blessed. They had not watched Him as He stood and 
wept over Jerusalem, and by the grave of Lazarus, or poured 
forth His soul in prayer for those whom the Father had 
‘given Him out of the world, and ‘for them also which 
should believe on Him through their word.’ || These and a 
hundred other such scenes had impressed themselves indeli- 
bly on the memory and the heart of the Apostle. But they 
to whom he now wrote did not thus know the Lord. How, 
then, had they learned to love Him ? 

The explanation is furnished when it is added: ‘zz whom, 
though now ye see Him not, yet believing” The faith and the 
love were both present things, and well might the joy be also. 
Theirs was the blessedness of those who ‘have not seen, and 


* Song 5:16; 2: 16. 

t No good example has been adduced of οἶδα, in its primary sense, Z have seen. 
The reference by Macknight and Burton to Matt. 2:2, 9, 10, is palpably erro- 
neous. Comp. the Revision of Fude 5, note ἡ For εἰδότες, of the received text,. 
however, the manuscripts Sin. B and C have ἐδότες, and this is edited by Beza, 
Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford. 

1 2 Corinthians 5 : 16. 

ὃ Mark 10: 16, (ἐναγκαλισάμενος.) 

|| Luke 7 : 37, 38, 48, 50; 19:41; John 11:35; 17:6, 20. 


40 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


yet have believed,’ * and through faith alone have obtained 
that full conviction of the truth as it is in Jesus, which mere 
sight never wrought—never could work—in any man. In 
order to such a gracious result there was needed in every case 
‘the Spirit of wisdom and revelation,’ whose office it is to 
receive of Christ’s, and show it unto the soul} That Spirit 
was now breathing through the realms of heathen darkness, 
wherever the Gospel came; and under His influence poor, 
benighted idolaters, even in the mountainous seclusion of 
Asia Minor, aroused themselves. They looked, and listened, 
and ‘Christ was formed in them.’¢ For, since the joint tes- 
timony of the Spirit and the word all centred in Christ, they 
who believed, believed in Him§ as the Son of the living and 
true God—man’s only Saviour, their own Saviour, from sin 
and wrath. And so faith worked by love of this heavenly 
Benefactor, and love, while laboring in all things to please 
Him, yearned after still closer communion with One so great, 
so good, so fair—longed to see His face, and fall at His feet, 
and worship Him. When assured, therefore, that this deep- 
est instinct of the new creature in Christ Jesus was yet to be 
fully satisfied—that it was only ‘zow’|| that they ‘saw Him 
not’**—that the separation was bat for a season—that He 
himself profoundly shared in the fond desire—that He had 
but gone to prepare a place for them, and was about to come 
again to receive them unto Himself, that His joy in them, 
and their joy in Him, might be full—ah! then, indeed, faith 
showed its power as ‘the substance of things hoped for, the 
evidence of things not seen, 77 and their hearts leaped forth 


* John 20 : 29. t Eph. 1:17; John 16: 14. + Gal. 4: 10. 

§ The words εἰς ὅν (77: whom) are connected with ἀγαλλιᾶσθε (ye rejoice) by 
Castalio, Brown, Huther. The last, however, acknowledges that ἀγαλλ. εἰς is 
without example, while πιστεύειν εἰς is very common. The construction, ὁρῶντες 
εἷς (Macknight, Scott, Peile) is still more unsuitable. 

|| Luther, Erasmus, Calvin, Bengel, and others, join ἄρτι to πιστεύοντες, nozw 
lelieving ; Castalio and Wesley, with ἀγαλλιᾶσθε, ye now rejoice. Weisinger at- 
taches it to πιστεύοντες, (delieving,) but allows it also to influence ὁρῶντες, (sceizg.) 

** The μή of this clause, says Steiger, is ‘a strong expréssion of the subjective 
sense of what is wanting ;? whereas, οὐκ of the preceding clause is ‘merely an 
' objective, historical negation.” The English reader will understand that these 
two particles are both rendered zof in v. 8. 

tt Hebrews 11:1. 





a ΤῊΣ 


Ὧν — on = 


Lecture 1V.—Chapter τ: 6-9. ΔΙ 


through all encompassing clouds to the brightness beyond, 
exulting™ with joy unspeakablet and full of glory’—a joy 
which only the service and the songs of eternity could ex- 
press—a joy already glorified,t like the face of Moses as he 
descended from the mount, or of Stephen in the transfigura- 
tion of his martyrdom. This joy of faith is itself the sure 
dawn of glory. As an old Roman Catholic expositor ὃ com- 
ments on the word: ‘This joy of yours is invested and suf- 
fused with glory; for it is on account of the heavenly glory, 
which ye hope for, that ye rejoice; and so this joy is a fore- 
taste of that glory.’ Or, as Peter himself expresses it: ‘ Re- 
ceiving the end of your || faith, the salvation of your souls, 


This ninth verse sets forth the present and permanent pri- 
vilege of the believers, as explaining and justifying the great- 
ness of their joy. 

The salvation of the Gospel is a salvation of souls, or a 
soul-salvation, not as excluding the body from the benefits of 
the redemption, but ds reaching the whole man, even that 
noblest and innermost part of our nature out of which are the 
issues ‘of life, and within which sin and the curse are the most 
strongly intrenched. It is no mere amelioration or adorn- 
ment of the outward life. The soul itself is saved from what- 
ever saddens, enfeebles, darkens, and defiles. So complete 
and thorough and radical is the salvation, which is ‘ the end 
of faith’—that at which faith aims, and in which it inevitably 
results. Nay, says the Apostle, ye are now ‘ recetving’ it— 
even now bearing off that prize of your high calling in the 
present earnest of the Spirit, in the peace of reconciliation, in 


* The same word as in v. 6. For the future reference of the verb in this in- 
stance (ye shall exult) Wiesinger urges a variety of considerations ; most of 
which have already been met on pp. 36, etc. ; and, all together, they do not over- 
come the great unlikelihood of the temporal force of ἀγαλλιᾶσθε (ye exult) being 
quite different from that of ἀγαπᾶτε, (ye love;) and of the two participles (seeing— 
believing) dependent on itself. 

{ dvexAwdntoc—in the New Testament found only here. 

t δεδοξασμένῃ. 

§ Cornelius a Lapide: ‘Letitia hac vestra vestita et perfusa est gloria, quia 
ob gloriam ccelestem, quam speratis, latamini; adeoque hec letitia est pregus- 
tus illius glorize.’ 

|| Tischendorf cancels ὑμῶν. 


42 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


your growing sanctification, in the eager realizations of faith 
and hope, the prelibations of your final and eternal joy.* 


You will have observed, that in these remarks I have 
brought together all that is here said of the joyful experience 
of the sojourners. We must now glance back at what the 


writer, on the first mention of their inward triumph, hastens 


to subjoin, as it were parenthetically or incidentally, respect- 
ing their adverse circumstances in this world. 

‘Though now for a season, for a little while,t ‘if need be, 
ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations. Some of 
the old interpreterst take the word rendered for a season as 
an adverb not of time, but (as in Luke 7 : 47) of degree; as 
if we should say, slightly grieved. But, as this tends merely 
to abate the designed contrast between the exultation and 
the grief, we shall do well to adhere to the sense of our Eng- 
lish version. What is meant is, that the conflict of emotions, 
however sharp while it lasted, would soon cease. But, when 
nearly all commentators understand the Apostle as referring 
to the brevity of human life, the mistake, I think, is obvious. 
The entire context both before and after suggests rather the 
shortness of the interval, which should precede the con- 
summation at the coming of the Lord; as when it is said, ch. 
4:7, ‘The end of all things is at hand.’ 

Till then the Church, like her Lord in the wilderness, and 
throughout His whole career on earth, is 2§ ¢emptations—a 
word, which, as used in Scripture, includes all perilous or 
afflictive circumstances of whatever sort, in so far as these 
either put to the test what is good in a man, or tend to pro- 
voke his evil tendencies. It is true, that modern extra-bibli- 
cal use rather restricts it to the second of these ideas, so as 
to denote an incitement or solicitation to sin ; and therefore 


* There is no need, therefore, of forcing (as some even do, who allow the joy 
to be a present thing; as Castalio, Beausobre and L’Enfant, Carpzoy, etc.) a 
future signification on κομιζόμενοι. (See on ch. 5 : 4—the same verb as in Luke 
7 :37—as if here equivalent to the κομιούμενοι of 2 Pet. 2 : 13, shall receive.) 

T ὀλίγον. 

t Syriac, Vulgate, (modicum ; for which Beza, Piscator, and others substitute 
faululum ; Cocceius and 5. Schmidt, Aarum,) etc. Steiger also prefers this 
view. 


ὃ ἐν. 


στὰ. ἀπ 


Lecture IV —Chapter 1 : 6-9. 43 


the modern versions generally exchange it here for ¢rials. 
But this again, at least in its popular acceptation as nearly 
synonymous with sazffertugs, is perhaps too limited and super- 
ficial, and fails to represent the inward, spiritual bearing. 

These brethren, then, even whilesexulting, as we have seen 
in the abundance and preciousness of their spiritual privileges, 
were at the same time beset by temptations—such as were 
not merely painful to flesh and blood, but were fitted, and by 
their adversaries expressly intended, to shake the steadfast- 
ness of their faith, And these temptations were ‘manzfold’ 
—very various in their origin, as well as in the nature and 
severity of their assault ; temptations, we can easily imagine, 
from unbelieving members of the same household—from for- 
mer friends, now alienated and embittered—from the malig- 
nant misconceptions and slanderous imputations of the hea- 
then around—from the loss of social position—from the strait- 
ening or withdrawal of the means and opportunities of earning 
their daily bread—and now, above all, from the growing jea- 
lousy and irritation, the open hostility, and still more and 
more menacing aspect, of great Rome herself. Is it strange, 
that, amid so many distresses and rising terrors, the children 
of God, begotten again for far higher and better things, ‘ were 
in heaviness, or, according to the usual rendering of the word, 
were grieved 2* 

What, then, are we to understand by the phrase, ‘zf need 
be, in this sixth verse? Some ἡ take it affirmatively: seeing 
that, or since, tt 1s needful that ye thus suffer. But, even sup- 
posing that to be the sense, it has been well remarked that 
‘the Apostle expresses it more delicately by suggesting the 
possibility that there mzgf¢ be need of it, instead of saying 
absolutely that there was need.’t It is better, therefore, to 
retain the conditional form. Indeed, since Christians are not 
all tried alike, nor equally at all times §—nor are they to rush 
into trials, but endure them only when God sends them||— 
what the writer intended may rather be this : ‘ though now for 


* λυπηθέντες, (Sin. G. :---τάς ;) nowhere else translated as here. 
+ Calvin, Bengel, Benson, Carpzov, Macknight, Brown, etc. 
¢ Barnes. ὃ CEcumenius. || Luther, Aretius, Beza, etc. 


44 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


a little while, f’—whenever, so far as—‘ zt ἐς needful’*—for 
God's glory and your own good—‘ ye are grieved through mant- 
fold temptations. Or the words may possibly have been 
thrown in to suggest a doubt, whether, numerous and formi- 
dable as the temptations were, it was necessary for the chil- 
dren of grace and heirs of glory to yield to grief on account 
of them—especially considering the gracious purpose that 
was to be served by them all. This is stated in the seventh 
verse : ; 

“ That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than 
of gold that perisheth, though tt be tricd with fire, might be found 
unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing’—or revela- 
tiont|—‘ of Fesus Christ. 

The general sense of this is as obvious as it is beautiful. 
‘Your enemies think evil against you; but God means it 
unto good. These very temptations, though for the present 
not joyous, but grievous, are really part of your preparation 
for your inheritance. They are God’s fiery crucible for the 
refining of your faith, that it may thenebe made up into a 
crown meet to be worn in the day of Christ’s revelation, and 
the manifestation along with Him of all the sons of God.’t 
Such, I say; is plainly the general idea. It is more difficult 
to determine the precise significance and relations of the 
several clauses. 

Much depends on the first words, ‘the trial of your faith.’ 
This has been thought to mean ¢he criterion, or test,§ of your 
faith; to wit, the temptations. And then it is the afflictions 
which try faith that are represented as ‘ much more precious’ || 


* δέον ἐστί: Tischendorf omits ἐστί, (Sin. B.) 

Τ ἀποκαλύψει. ; 

t Gen. 50:20; Heb. 12:10; Rom. 8: 109. 

§ This classical sense of doxiucov (compare the Septuagint, Prov. 27:21. More 
doubtful is Ps. 12:6) is retained by many at the parallel, James 1 : 3, (the only 
other place in the New Testament where the word is found ;) and here by Coc- 
ceius in his commentary, (for this does not agree with his version,) Pyle, Burton, 
etc. Comp. the use of δοκιμή in 2 Cor. 13 : 3. 

|| πολὺ τιμιώτερον is now read as one word, πολυτιμότερον, (Sin, etc.) This is 
included by many in the predicate—may be found much more precious, (so the 
Syriae as interpreted by some—not Tremellius ; the Amiatine Vulgate ; Luther, 
Pott, Steiger, De Wette, Brown, Huther, etc.) But that the faith of Christians, 
or the trial of it, is of greater moment than gold, or the trial of it, is something 


Lecture IV—Chapter 1 : 6-9. 45 


than the fire that tries gold, the result in the former case 
being so much more valuable ; or, perhaps, as themselves 
more precious than gold. Much more frequently, however, 
‘the trial of your faith’ is supposed to denote the genuzneness, 
the excellent quality, of faith, as that is ascertained by the 
process of testing.* And akin to this is the explanation, your 
tried faith, adopted or sanctioned by many.f But on the 
whole, I prefer—what is also, I think, the most common in- 
terpretation—that conveyed by our version: ‘¢he ¢rial, or 
proof, ‘of your faith’—that is, the process itself of testing.§ 

Now, this in the case of faith is assumed to be ‘ much 
more precious’ than in the case of gold—a far nobler and more 
momentous thing, and looking to far costlier issues; or 
again, according to the construction preferred by many,|| 
more precious than gold itself; just as Moses ‘ esteemed the 
reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt.’** 
The most prized of all the metals from the mines of earth is 
still but a perishable commodity. As it does not make a 
man rich toward God, so in itself it is a frail possession, liable 
to loss or decay, and at the best it cannot ‘endure unto ever- 
lasting life. + 

‘ Though it be tried with fire; adds Peter. If you set this 


which an Apostle would be more likely to assume at once, and in passing, than 
formally to represent it as a truth awaiting discovery in the day of the Lord. On 
the other hand, Steiger objects that while εὑρίσκομαι (to be found) often takes a 
participle or an adjective for its predicate, (Matt. 1:18, etc.,) it is never so con- 
strued in the New Testament at least, with εἰς, (zfo.) But he fails in his at- 
tempt to show that Rom. 7: 10 is not such an example. No doubt αὕτη there re- 
presents, as he says, the previous ἐντολή; but for that very reason it belongs to 
the subject, still leaving εὑρέθη in immediate connection—or οὖσα at most under- 
stood—with εἰς θάνατον. In both cases the exegesis rests on the common force 
of εἰς, as marking the tendency and issue. 

* Tholuck at Rom. 15: 4, Huther, Peile, Robinson, ete. Comp. δοκιμή in 2 
Cor. 2:9, etc. 

7 Tyndale, Estius, Kuinol, Pott, Meyer, De Wette, Alford, and many others. 

1 This would better represent the original ambiguity. 

§ Compare the δοκιμασία of Heb. 3 : 9, as read by Lachmann and Tischendorf. 

|| As the old English versions, most of the modern foreign authorities, and Al- 
ford. For examples of the other construction, (comparatio compendiaria,) see 
Matt. 5:20, and John5:36. The connection with πειρασμῦις, and the promi- 
nence of the same idea in both members of the comparison, τὸ δοκίμιον... 
δοκιμαζομένου, lead me rather to prefer it in the present instance. 

** Hebrews I1: 26. tt John 6:27. 





46 Lectures on the Furst Epistle of Peter. 


clause over against the phrase, ‘such more precious, then it 
becomes parallel to that expression in the Psalm, (19:10; 


comp. 119 : 127,) ‘more to be desired than gold, yea than 





much fine’ —refined— gold. Or, if you regarded it as oppos- 
ed to the words, ‘that perisheth, the idea would be this: 
‘The nature of gold as a perishable thing, is not changed in 
the furnace. Take what pains with it you will, still it per- 
isheth. But in my opinion the structure of the original* 
cannot well be reconciled with either of these interpreta- 
tions. The latter opposition, indeed, I take to be obviously 
the true one; but the translation needs to be amended from 
‘though tt be tried’ to ‘yet ts tried, or proved, ‘by fire’ And 
the explanation suggested by this is the following: The 
thing that a man most values, gold—perishable substance 
though it be—he will ye¢, for the sake of an important end, 
commit even to the ordeal of fire. Just so God deals with 
faith. The fining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold ; 
but the Lord—when He sits as a Refiner—trieth the hearts, 
that He may purely purge away their dross.} However hot 
the furnace, not a particle of heaven’s pure ore—the faith of 
God's elect—shall perish there. Only the base alloys of earth 
must be consumed. 

For you will now, in the last place, mark the end that God 
has in view in all these severities toward His children: ‘ That 
the proof of your faith, being much more precious than of gold 
that perisheth, yet is proved by fire, may be found’—blessed dis- 
covery ‘at last of the divine purpose in all the previous harsh 
processes !—‘ szay be found’—nothing of it lost—‘ wnto praise 
and honor and gloryt at the revelation of Fesus Christ’ The 
Apostle writes as if no accumulation of words, however ex- 
pressive, could fitly describe the purity and brightness of the 
crown which shall rest on the head of every saint, while the 
crowns of all saints shall but reflect the unveiled glory of 
their one Lord. He had already spoken of the final and per- 
fect salvation as ‘ ready to be revealed in the last time.’ Now 


ἜΤ refer to the particle dé and the present participle δοκιμαζομένου. 

TErovenl ass 15: τὸ 25. 9 a Malling i135 

t Or as Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford read, praise and glory and honor. (Sin. 
PAG Ga) 





Lecture IV—Chapter 1 : 6-9. 47 


he reminds his brethren that that should not be, till the Sa- 
viour Himself is revealed. . 


Such, brethren, were the joys and such the sorrows of these 
ancient servants of our Lord. Are we, their professed fol- 
lowers, heirs in any measure of their mingled experience? 
Do our hearts ever swell with love to the yet unseen person 
of Jésus Christ? Do our faith and hope in Him ‘put glad- 
ness’ there, more than in the time that this world’s corn and 
wine increase ?* Then let us beware of fainting or murmuring, 
if there is appointed to us a share also in their filial chastise- 
ment. ‘For what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not ὁ ἢ 
Sooner or later all these children and heirs have occasion to 
say, not only with acquiescence but with fervent gratitude: 
‘Thou, O God, hast proved us: Thou hast tried us, as silver 
is tried.’{ And now we have seen in what it all ends—‘ praise 
and honor and glory’—in the presence of God and the angels 
of God—‘at the revelation of Fesus Christ. For as in the be- 
ginning, so now, and evermore, till the heavens open and show 
Him to us as He is, ¢#az is the goal of all true Christian faith, 
and hope, and joy. And if even such faint glimpses of His 
beauty as we now have through the veil of the word and 
sacrament are found so precious, what, oh! what shall the rap- 
ture be of beholding Him face to face! 


* Psalm 4: 7. + Hebrews 12: 7. t Psalm 66 : Io. 


ee es μὰ 


LECTURE VI. 


lo PETER: 15 ΤΟΞΙΣ. 


‘OF which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who 
prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: searching what, or what 
manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testi- 
fied beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. Unto 
whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the 
things wich are now reported unto you by them that preached the Gospel unto 
you with*the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels de- 
sired to look into,’ : 


In these verses the writer confirms what he had been say- 
ing respecting the greatness and the certainty of the salvation 
of Christ, by a reference to the profound interest taken in 
whatever pertains to that subject by all wise and holy beings. 

‘Concerning’, which salvation, he says, ‘prophets’+—pro- 
phets themselves ; prophets generally, and as a class—‘ dz7- 
gentlyt inquired and searched” They were not mere passive, 
unconcerned mediums for the transmission of the divine 
oracles. Their own souls were stirred by the grandeur and 
the mystery of the theme. That theme was ‘ sa/vation’—sal- 
vation in its last and fullest development, or, as it is here 
described from the principle that reigns in all its methods and 
results, ‘the grace for you’$—appointed, reserved for you; you 
of this later dispensation ; you, in whatever remote, heathen 
lands you sojourn; you, Gentiles, as well as Jews. 


* qrepi—and so in the last clause. 

{ Without the article ; asin v. 12, azge/s. 

{| The emphasis is common to both verbs, (of which the latter, ἐξερευνάω, is 
nowhere else found in the New Testament.) At the same time, the main thought 
is not this emphasis, but the fact itself, so emphasized. 

ὃ τῆς εἰς ὑμᾶς χάριτος. Comp. τὰ εἰς Χριστὸν παθήματα, ν. τι. 





Lecture V—Chapter τὸ: 10-12. 49 


Concerning this grace it was that the prophets ‘prophesied’ 
To do so was not, indeed, their only function. Coming forth 
from the presence of God, in times often of national degeneracy 
or of public trial, they reasserted, expounded, and applied the 
divine law. They rebuked with authority alike the rulers 
and the people. They denounced judgments on the impeni- 


tent, while they also cheered and strengthened the hearts 


of faithful mourners by messages of deliverance and enlarge- 
ment. But ever and anon the voice of instruction—of reproof, 
of warning—of encouragement—would suddenly tremble with 
tenderness or swell into rapture, in the anticipation of scenes 
far transcending the measure of ‘the times then present.’* 
For theirs was not a ministry of merely human wisdom, fidel- 
ity, and love. ‘Holy men of God spake borne along by the 
Holy Ghost’ t—by ‘ the Spirit of Christ in them?t The very 
same Spirit which descended at the Jordan on the Man Christ 
Jesus, and now dwells in Him as the Head of His body, the 
Church, breathed also on these His ancient forerunners ; and 
then, as now, ‘the testimony of Jesus was the spirit of pro- 
phecy.’§ From whatever occasion of immediate interest that 
prophetic spirit took its flight, it soared till in the far future it 
saw the day of Christ—saw the Sun of Righteousness labor- 
ing through some dread eclipse, and then pouring the blaze 
of an unclouded meridian on a regenerated world. ‘To Him,’ 
as our Apostle in ike manner declared on a memorable occa- 
sion, ‘ give all the prophets witness.’|| From the beginning— 
from that first hour of hope for guilty man—which foretold the 
bruising of our Deliverer’s heel, and of the head of His foe—** 
all on through the dim, weary ages of expectancy and prepara- 
tion, the Spirit of God—of the eternal Son—of the yet unborn 
Messiah, brooded anew over the moral chaos, and ‘in many 
parts and in many ways’—‘ here alittle, and there a little ; t} by 
types, and symbols, and the rapt utterances of seers, growing 
ever clearer as the fulness of the time drew nigh, ‘zas’ still 
‘showing and testifying beforchandtt the sufferings of Christ, 
and the glory that should follow, . 

* Heb.g:9. +2 Peter 1: 21, (φερόμενοι) $76 ἐν αὐτῦις Iveipa Χριστοῦ. 

§ Rev. 19 : 10. || Acts 10 : 43. ἘΞ (G ene 34) Ly. 


tt Heb. 1: 1, (πολυμέρως καὶ πολυτρόπως ;) Is. 28 : 10. 
tt ἐδήλου προμαρτυρόμενον. The latter word is found nowhere else ; and both 


50 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


‘ The sufferings of Christ, literally, the sufferings for Christ, 
appointed for Christ,* are His humiliations in the flesh below 
the angels, and His life and death under the curse. The phrase 
has, indeed, been sometimes explained as denoting the suffer- 
ings endured by believers zz reference to—on account of— 
Christ.} The writer’s immediate object, it is said, was to com- 
fort his brethren under their own present sorrows ; besides that 
it is implied in the very structure of the passage that ‘ the pro- 
phecy of the prophets (v. 10) and the testimony of the Spirit of 
Christ refer to the same thing.’t But the force of these argu- 
ments disappears when we reflect, that the personal Christ, as 
crucified and glorified, is Himself the Fountain of ‘ gvace’ and 
the Author of ‘ salvation’ to His people; that the prophets 
would naturally expect, what is actually realized in the experi- 
ence of the Church, that Messiah’s friends would share alike in 
His humiliation and His triumph ;§ and that the interposition, 
between Christ’s cross and His crown, of these Gentile times— 
of privilege, indeed, but also—of mourning and fasting dur- 
ing the Lord’s temporary absence, is the very ‘mystery which 
hath been hid from ages and from generations. || 

In the same way, ‘ the glory that should follow’ is not to be 
understood of what awaits the suffering saints in the world to 
come, except as that is involved in, and secured by, the glory 
of Christ. That glory, however, is manifold, like His suffer- 


ings; and, accordingly, the expression here properly is, not 


words are construed as above—that is, as standing in the closest mutual relation 
and as having ‘ ¢he sufferings,’ etc., for their common object—by the Dutch version 
and Huther. The Syriac also may be understood in nearly the same way, and 
Scholefield compares Acts 28 : 23, ἐξετίθετο διαμαρτυρόμενος. For other construc- 
tions see p. 48, §. 

* ra εἰς Χριστὸν παθήματα. See p. 49, note ft. 

t Clericus, Brown, Huther, and one or two others. 

t Brown—who, as an alternative, is willing to accept of Pott’s suggestion : suf- 
ferings endured by the Jewish people before the times of Messiah—ztil Christ. 
But this is still less satisfactory ; nor is Gal. 3 : 24, to which Brown appeals, a 
good example pf this very questionable construction of εἰς in the sense of εέγέζ, 
with a proper name. 

§ Matt. 10 : 24, 25; Acts9: 4,53 Phil. 3: 10; Col. 1:24; 2 Tim. 2: 11, 12, 
etc. Calvin’s modification of the common view may, therefore, be admitted : 
‘Christum a suo corpore non separat—he does not separate Christ from His 
body.’ 

| Matts.o<)15);\(Col.jr : 26,5) etc. 





Lecture V—Chapter 1 : 10-12. 51 


‘the glory, but ‘the glories after these,* that is, after the suf- 
ferings. There is the glory of the resurrection—the glory of 
the ascension—the glory of the present session at the right 
hand of God—the glory of the second advent, and the new 
creation, and Israel restored, and the Church perfected, and 
the everlasting kingdom. On the head of Him, whose ‘name 
is called The Word of God,’ John in Patmos saw ‘many 
crowns ;+ and ages before that, the same spectacle had 
blessed the visions of prophets. As the glories must neces- 
sarily be preceded by the sufferings, so the sufferings were 
as certainly to be followed by the glories. When our risen 
Lord, therefore, sought to remove from the minds and hearts 
of His disciples the perplexity and despondency occasioned 
by His death, the method He took was to show them the in- 
separable connection between these two stages in His career 
—in other words, that it was necessary for the Messiah to 
‘suffer,’ and by that path to ‘enter into His glory. But for 
this demonstration no new revelation was required, but only 
aright apprehension of the old. ‘Beginning at Moses and all 
the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures 
the things concerning Himself’ t 

That the prophetic testimony reached onward to the final 
consummation, in ‘ the restitution of all things’ at the return 
of Jesus Christ from heaven, is plainly asserted by our Apostle 
in his second recorded discourse after Pentecost. And that 
it also embraced the great already accomplished facts of the 
evangelical history, is still further evident from the statement 
in the 12th verse, that the ancient prophets ‘ mdnistered’— 
used to minister—wwere ministering|| from age to age, as their 
one grand, continuous theme—‘ ¢he things ’—those things, the 
very things**—which now, says Peter, or since the coming in 
of the present dispensation, ‘ were reported} } unto you by those 
who preached the Gospel’—prociaimed the glad tidingstt— 
‘unto you with the Holy Spirit’—or, in 85. the Holy Spirit, as 


* τὰς μετὰ ταὐτὰ δύξας. TRev. 10: 12. ¢ Luke 24 : 26, 27. 
SPACES) 42120; 2m, || διηκόνουν. ** αὐτά. tt ἀνηγγέλη. 
tt εὐαγγελισαμένων. ὃ év—which, however, is cancelled by Lachmann, Ti- 
schendorf, Alford, (A, B.) 


22 


52 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


the Divine element, so to speak, of their activity—‘ sent* from 
heaven. 

The writer, we cannot doubt, recalled the wonder of Pente- 
cost. Formerly that same spirit had been in the prophets. 
But, as between His presence and operation then, and His 
presence and operation now, there existed something of the 
same difference in point of clearness, and fulness, and per- 
manence, as between the old transient theophanies and the 
incarnation. At the baptism of our Lord the Heavenly Dove 
not only ‘descended from heaven,’ but ‘abode upon Him,’ as 
having at last found the Man on whom it could rest. And so 
the promise to the disciples was of ‘another Comforter,’ who 
should ‘abide with them for ever... dwelling with them, and 
being in them,’ not as a wayfarer, tarrying for a night, but asa 
constant Guest—one of the household—the very life of their 
life. When that promise came to be fulfilled, its rich sig- 
nificance was symbolized by ‘the sound as of a rushing mighty 
wind filling all the house where they were sitting, and by the 
lambent fire which ‘sa¢ upon each of them. And then the 
promise and the symbol were straightway justified by the re- 
sults which followed both in the preaching and the hearing of 
the Gospel. 


From the tone of this allusion to those who first preached 
it in Asia Minor, especially when taken in connection with 
the history of the Acts, we might perhaps safely infer that the 
writer himself was not of the number.{ But it is more im- 
portant for us to notice again before proceeding the variety 
of phrase, in which the main subject of the prophetic ministry 
is here described. That was nothing less than the great 
‘salvation’ in which the Christian Church now exults. It 
was. ‘ the grace’ reserved for the latter days. It was ‘the 
sufferings’ and the after glories to which Messiah was ap- 
- pointed, as the means whereby the salvation was to be 
wrought out, and the marvellous grace of God in that sal- 
vation was to be illustrated. It was, in fact, says Peter, the 


* Nowhere else, out of more than 130 instances, does the English version add 
down to the meaning of ἀποστέλλω. 

1) Johny tie 22. 14 Gar 7 Acts) 2:2, 2: 

t+ Comp. 2 Peter 3: 2. 





Lecture V—Chapter τ: 10-12. 53 


identical subject, that now constitutes the burden of the evan- 
gelical message. 

You may well inquire: And whence had these men this 
wisdom ?* Whence this astonishing harmony between the 
prophets of the old covenant and the apostles of the new? 
Must we ascribe it to the sagacity with which the former 
scanned the tendencies of their own times, and were thus 
enabled to anticipate the future? The monstrous absurdity 
of such a theory is at once apparent from the length of time 
that intervened, and the nature of the events themselves so 
anticipated. What perceptible, what conceivable tendency 
was there in human affairs toward the incarnation of the Son 
of God, and His resurrection from the dead—the two facts 
on which every thing else depended? The text, you perceive, 
gives a far simpler and more satisfactory explanation. What 
the Apostles preached was shown and testified beforehand by 
the prophets, because one and the same Spirit of Christ was 
present with both. ‘It is not ye that speak, but the Holy 
Ghost,’f said our Lord to the former. It was equally true 
of the latter. ς 

And this predominance of the Divine in their case also is 
evinced moreover by the statement, that ‘ato them 11 was 
revealed’—so much at least being made clear to their con- 
sciousness—‘ that not unto themselves, but unto us’t—us of 
the new economy ; us who live so long after their decease— 
‘they were ministering’ these mysteries of God. This cer- 
tainly does not mean, that the prophets and their godly co- 
temporaries had neither part nor lot in the Gospel salvation. 
Nor is it a formal denial that that salvation was exclusively 
for them ; as if it were said: wot to themselves alone, but to us 
also. Nor is it even spoken by way merely of contrasting 
their inferior light and privilege with ours: xot so much to 
themselves, as to us. What was revealed to the prophets was 
rather this, that the realization of their predictions respecting 
the Messiah, His sufferings and His glories—the free admis- 


* Matthew 13 : 54. + Mark 13 : II. ν 
1 Griesbach, Scholz, Lachmann, Alford read ἱμῖν, (sto you; Sin. A, C, G.) 


54 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


sion to that ‘feast of fat things,’* which already by their 
hands the Lord of hosts was preparing in His holy mountain 
—was not to be looked for in their day, nor yet to be confined 
to the natural Israel. It was to be the joy of other times and 
of all people—yea, as the event has proved, of zs, ‘upon whom 
. the ends of the world are come.’t 


Somet have supposed that this partial revelation was the 
consequence and reward of the investigations previously men- 
tioned: ‘They searched, and so it was revealed to them, etc.’ 
But so much as that revelation amounted to seems often to 
stand out on the very face of the prophecies themselves,§ and 
can scarcely be what engaged these earnest inquiries. Be- 
sides, it is here quite plainly intimated, that the inquiries both 
took a wider range, and had also a more definite scope. And 
therefore, as I understand the mutual relation of the verses 
before us, the researches of the prophets did not issue in the 
knowledge, that what they foretold concerned more directly 
some future age ; but rather, the knowledge of that fact helped 
to stimulate their researches. Here was an illustration at 
once of their humility and their magnanimity. They did not, 
like the elder brother in the parable, sullenly turn aside from 
festivities, in which they themselves might be thought to have 
but an inferior or secondary interest. ‘Blessed are your 
eyes,’ said Christ to His disciples, ‘for they see: and your 
ears, for they hear. For verily I say unto you, that many 
prophets and righteous men longed to see the things which 
ye see, and saw them not; and to hear the things which ye 
hear, and heard them not.’|| And not only so; they under- 
stood but imperfectly their own predictions. They lacked 
the clearness and satisfaction of the fulfilment. They ‘saw 
through a glass, darkly.’** But what they were enabled even 
thus to descry of the great salvation—the solemn prepara- 
tions, and the final triumph—sufficed to fill them with an ex- 
ceeding joy. They all lived and ‘died in faith, not having 


* Isaiah 25 : 6. {ie ΘΌΥ ΤΟ ΤῊ» t Bengel, Steiger, etc, 
§ Isaiah 6: 11-13; Dan. 10:1, 14; 12:9-13; Hos. 3:4, 5, etc. 

\| Matt. 13 : 16, 17, (ἐπεθύμησαν ἰδεῖν ἃ βλέπετε, καὶ οὐκ εἶδον" KTA.) 
** y Corinthians 13 : 12. 





- Lecture V—Chapter 1 : 10-12. 55 


received the promises’ in their accomplishment, ‘but having 
seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced 
them.’* In their several measures, like faithful Abraham, 
they ‘exulted to see Messiah’s day ; and they saw it, and were 
glad.+ The very darkness that intervened—the mists that 
veiled «its dawning—the manifold uncertainties still resting 
on the scene, amid the dazzling splendors of its noon-tide 
glory—all served but to deepen their curiosity, and hold their 
wistful, wondering gaze. ‘ Concerning which salvation pro- 
phets diligently inquired and searched’ Nothing pertaining 
to it—its provisions, its subjects, its nature or extent—was to 
them a matter of indifference. In the language of one of 
them, they were ‘astonished at the vision,’ even where they 
least comprehended its precise import.t 

And of course, such being their earnest interest in the 
whole subject, they could not possibly be careless as to the 
time of the realization. They knew, indeed, that there was 
to be some considerable delay. But how protracted that 
delay should be—at what point in the future the new world 
would arise—and what, in detail, were the peculiar arrange- 
ments and adjustments of the Messianic era ;$ these were 
questions yet unresolved, and on them they would fain have 
had more light. This I suppose to be what is meant, when 
to the general statement of the 1oth verse, ‘ Concerning which 
salvation prophets diligently inquired and searched, it is added 
in the 11th, ‘searching for|| what, or what manner of time— 





* Hebrews II : 13. t John 8 : 56, (ἡγαλλιάσατο.) t Daniel 3 : 27. 

§ 1. Our version, disregarding the εἰς, makes καιρόν the object of ἐδήλου. But 
this, though acquiesced in by several, ‘cannot,’ says Scholefield, ‘be right.’ Our 
translators seem to have been reconciled to it by the strong preference, which 
Beza avows for what he, and Leusden after him, erroneously represent as the 
Syriac construction. 2. Luther and many others explain thus: “ὦ what... the 
Spirit... pointed, referred But the Greek verb never means this. 3. ἐδήλου 
has been taken as absolute, or with its object supplied from the context. 4. 7d 
παθήματα κτλ. has been made the immediate object, the participle προμαρτυρόμενον 
being construed as an adjective—or with ἐν aitoic—or absolutely. 

|| Entirely out of the question (though Barnes thinks that, ‘so far as the Greek 
is concerned,’ it might be allowed) is Macknight’s supplement of Aadv to τίνα, 
what people. Nor is the interpretation which Barnes adopts, zzéo whom, what 
person, (and so Burton, Sharpe, Peile,) much helped by Peile’s reference to the 
perplexity of an Ethiopian, Acts 8: 34. 





ΝΕΝΩΝ 





56 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


that is, for what time* or what sort of time—‘ the Spirit of 
Christ in them was showing and testifying beforehand the suf- 
: ferings appointed for Christ, and the glories after these’ The 
very cry that now bursts from souls beneath the altar, ‘ How 
long, O Lord?’ sounded amidst the shadows of the old eco- 
nomy.t And, remembering the great difficulty experienced 
by the Apostles themselves, in their attempts to conceive 
aright of the relations of that dispensation of which at last 
they were the immediate heralds, we cannot wonder that the 
ancient prophets should have been still more perplexed in 
their efforts to trace its characteristic features. Messiah’s 
sufferings and subsequent glories—that He should be a Man 
of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and yet a prosperous 
King—that He should descend into death, and then prolong 
His days—bear the sin of many, and divide the spoil with 
the strong—that He should be despised and rejected of men, 
and that to Him should be the gathering of the peoples— 
forsaken of God, and God’s Elect, in whom His soul delight- 
ethall this was made known with a distinctness and variety 
of iteration, that left no room for doubt as to either of the 
two classes of facts.t But to reconcile the two—to detect 
their indissoluble, though dimly reveaied, connections—to fol- 
low the footsteps of Israel’s great Champion, from his birth 
of the Virgin, through the valley of His humiliation and the 
gates of Hades, onward to the right hand of God, and the, 
throne of His father David, and the dominion of all the 
earth—this again was a problem, which in regard merely to . 
the determination of the times and the seasons involved in it, 
their limitations and properties, challenged and received the 
devout and patient study of the prophets.§ 


Nor of them alone. The text points us to other students, 


* Bengel: ‘ Quod innuit tempus per se, quasi dicas eram suis numeris nota- 
tam: guale dicit tempus ex eventibus variis noscendum. Dan. 9:2.’ ‘ What 
denotes simply the time, as if you should mention an era by its numerical nota- 
tion ; what manner of marks the time as distinguishable from its various events.’ 

Ποὺ 1.0, 10; ΒΕ ΟΘ 12 5) ΟἿ:5; 5. 0 11, ἴω: 

t Gen. 49 : 10 (ny) : Ps, 22... 15..42 1; 52.123, 0» 10. 12) ὙῸν 215 5. 

§ Altogether unwarranted is De Wette’s restriction of what is here said of the 
prophets:to the case of Daniel, (9:2, 22-27.) 





Lecture V.—Chapter 1 : 10-12. 57 


standing, as it were, beside or close behind* the prophets, 
and not less intent than they. ‘ Which things the angels de- 
sive to look into,’ or, ‘into which things’ —to wit, the things 
reported unto you by the gospel preachers; Christ’s suffer- 
ings and glories ; and these as exhibiting the grace of God, 
as securing the salvation of the Church, as reaching in their 
developments and influences through the advancing ages to 
‘the dispensation of the fulness of times’ |—‘ zzto which things 
angels t—even angels, those strong, pure, wise, ever-living 
spirits, familiar as they are with heaven’s beauties and gran- 
deurs—‘ long to gaze’§ Yes, here—at Bethlehem, in Gethse- 
mane, on Calvary, in the garden-sepulchre, from the interces- 
sions of our ascended High-Priest, the upper room at Jerusa- 
lem, and the ‘ rivers of living water’|| flowing thence to the 
uttermost ends of the earth, and into the depths of eternity, 
further than even their bright eyes can see—in a word, in 
Christ and the Church, they learn more of God, and of God’s 
ways, than in all the universe besides.** 

We have no good English equivalent for the expression 
which we here render Zo /ook or gaze. Its most frequent use 
in Scripture is to describe, according to what is no doubt the 
original force of the word, the dending or stooping of the dis- 
ciples as they looked into the tomb after the resurrection of 
their Lord.t+ But we are scarcely on that account authorized 
‘to say, with many expositors,t¢ that in the case before us there 
is an allusion to the supposed similar posture of the cherubim 
over the mercy-seat. It is not at all certain that such was 
their posture, or even that the cherubim represented angels.§§ 
What is, however, plainly implied in the whole phrase is the 


* Bengel requires us to note the παρά in παρακύψαι as implying that we are the 
parties most nearly concerned, and that the angels are only bystanders and on- 
lookers, (and so Wiesinger.) But this is to rest more on the preposition than the 
usage warrants. 

ἡ Ephesians 1: 10 ἐ Without the article, as in v. 10, prophets. 

ὃ ἐπιθυμοῦσιν. παρακύψαι. | John 7 : 38. ** Ephesians 3 : 10. 

tt Luke 24:12; John 20:5, 11. The only other instance in the New Testa- 
ment is James 1 : 25. 

tt After Beza. 

§§ If the living creatures of Rev. 4:7, 8 were cherubic, then Rev. 5 : 8, 9 would 
show that the cherubim represented redeemed men. 








58 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


earnestness of angelic contemplation, and the depth of an- 
gelic interest in the processes and issues of the mediatorial 
work. And to this, Scripture bears frequent and ample tes- 
timony. 

But another idea equally apparent is, the ΤΑΔΕ ΚΣ: 
of the angelic knowledge on these subjects. ‘/uto which 
things angels long to gaze. In the school of Christ, which is 
His Church, they are not only ‘ministering spirits,* but 
learners also. They too confess the greatness of ‘the mys- 
tery of godliness. + They find depths in it which they can- 
not fathom—into which they can not look. Many ages since, 
their voices were heard by the prophet of the captivity, cry- 
ing: ‘How long? . . . . How long shall it be to the end of 
these wonders?’ And even now, as they meditate on the 
sufferings and the glories of Christ, and behold the mingled 
darkness and brightness of that path of life along which He 
leads His people, and mark the prosperity of the wicked, and 
the workings of the apostasy, and the desolations of Zion, and 
the gross darkness still covering the earth, they say with us, 
but with a humility profounder far than ours, ‘We know in 
part,’§ and they await the day of final revelation. || 


In conclusion, let me, I, caution you, brethren, against the 
ignorant frivolity which, professing to reverence the Scrip- 
tures of the New Testament, speaks slightingly of those of — 
the Old. As well may you sever the light of the meridian 
from its dawn ; or, cutting a sunbeam in two, retain only the 
nearer portion. The New Testament itself refuses to accept 
any such partial and exclusive homage. Its very highest 
glory is, that from first to last it is but the unfolding of the 
law and the props. ‘The Spirit of Christ’ was ‘in them, 
and spake by them.* 

2. Another popular conceit of our day is, that there is but 
little use in studying the prophetic word of God, or, indeed— 


* Hebrews I : 14. | 1 Timothy 3 : 16, (6uoAoyoupérwe.) 

ὁ Daniel 8: 13; 12:6. § 1 Corinthians 13 : 9. 

|| Wiesinger suggests that the aorist form (παρακύψαι) may impart such an in- 
sight, as should lay open the mystery ovce for all, 

** See pp. 426-432 





Lecture Vi—Chapter 1 : 10-12. 59 


to judge by the practice of the great majority even of Chris- 
tian professors—the Bible at all; at least, beyond what lies on 
the surface, or what children are taught in Sabbath-schools. 
This, you perceive, was not the temper of the prophets: They 
‘diligently inquired and searched” It is not the temper of 
angels: Into these things ‘angels long to gaze. 

3. Again, if such be the interest felt by all that is wisest 
and holiest in earth and heaven, in whatever concerns the re- 
demption of man, alas for those to whom this great salvation 
itself is offered, and who yet choose to live and die in the 
- neglect of it! 

4. And, finally, let the afflicted children of God take com- 
fort from the consideration of what was foretold, and has been 
fulfilled, in regard to God’s own Well-Beloved, ‘the Author 
and Finisher of their faith, to whose image it is God’s pur- 
pose, and the dearest ambition of their hearts, that they shall 
be in all things conformed. Grudge not, then, brethren, to 
sit down beside the Man of Sorrows, and to mingle your tears 
_ with His. So shall you hereafter ‘sit with Him in His throne.’ 
Refuse not ‘the fellowship of His sufferings.’ What though 
you should even be ‘made conformable unto His death’ ?* 


Remember only that for Him, as for you, the rule of the 


household was: Suffering, and, after that, glory. 


FNC Verse 205 ἘΠ] 2. ΤῸ: 





LECTURE VI. 


LY af A BY DY da ar 3 oP 


‘WHEREFORE gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for 
the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as 
obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your 
ignorance: but as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner 
of conversation ; because it is written, Be ye holy ; for I am holy.’ 


WE here enter on the main division of the Epistle, extend- 
ing to the oth verse of the 5th chapter, and consisting chiefly 
of apostolic counsel and exhortation. Of the several sections 
into which it has been subdivided the first may be said to 
reach as far as the 1oth verse of the 2d chapter; and in it 
Peter summons his brethren to hope, holiness, godly fear, 
‘brotherly love, and continual growth in grace, as the great 
leading duties of every Christian, as such. For in the case 
of each of these duties in succession it will be found, that the 
motive by which it is enforced is drawn directly from the 
nature of the Christian’s calling and privilege, as described in 
the. previous part of this chapter. There is, indeed, as was 
formerly observed,* no peculiarity more marked in the New 
Testament style of teaching morals than this, that everywhere 
it first assumes the necessity of a new spiritual state and cha- 
racter, before any man can render the new obedience required, 
and then from that gracious change itself it expects him to 
derive the strength and impulse needed for running the race 
that is set before him. 

Of this evangelical characteristic we have striking examples 
throughout the present context. Mark, for instance, the way 
in which the writer here makes the transition to his practical 


* Page 24. 





Lecture VI—Chapter 1 : 13-16. 61 


inculcations. ‘ Wherefore; says he—and the reference need 
not be confined to any particular part of what precedes, but 
to all that had been said respecting the doings and purposes 
of the Divine mercy in the salvation of the sojourners, no less 
than to the estimation in which that salvation was held by 
prophets and angels—‘ These things being so, what manner 
of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godli- 
ness ?’* But let us consider the more immediate special in- 
ference of v. 13. 

‘ Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and 
hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at 
the revelation of Fesus Christ. The main stress is to be laid 
on the last clause, the other two clauses rather suggesting 
the necessary preparation ; thus: Wherefore girding up—or, 
having girt up—the loins of your mind, being sober, hope per- 
fectly—so it reads in our English margin—for the grace— 
have your hope perfectly turned toward, and set on, the grace— 
coming to you at the revelation of Fesus Christ.t 

Christians, then, are to be ahopeful people. Not only have 
they a right to be so, but the Apostle—the Apostle of hope, 
as Peter has been called—enforces it upon them as an indis- 
pensable obligation. He had given thanks to God, you re- 
member, first of all, that in His great mercy He had begotten 
them again toa living hope ; and now the first of all the duties 
enjoined is, that theyrlive in the full enjoyment of that hope. 
The object of it had already been variously described, as ‘an 
inheritance reserved in the heavens ’—as ‘ salvation ready to 
be revealed in the last time’—as ‘ praise and honor and glory 
at the revelation of Jesus Christ.’ Here it takes the name of 
its source—that Divine attribute, which shall still be recog- 
nized and celebrated by the redeemed before the throne, as 

‘reigning unto eternal life’ What believers are directed to 
hope for is ‘ gvace,’ and that not in those first measures of it, 
which are the earnest of the inheritance, nor in such increas- 
ed supplies of it as may be vouchsafed during the remainder 


Ἔ 2 Petenaeiule 

+ Διὸ ἀναζωσάμενοι τὰς ὀσφύας τῆς διανοΐας ὑμῶν, νήφοντες, τελείως ἐλπίσατε ἐπὶ 
τὴν φερομένην ὑμῖν χάριν κτλ. 

¢ Rom, 5 : 21. 








62 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


of their pilgrimage, or in a dying hour, or even in the inter- 
mediate state; but grace, as presupposing all these, in its 
fulness and consummation. For this they look only at that 
period, which the writer with a fond repetition loves ever to 
designate as the time of ‘ the revelation of Fesus Christ. 

Of that great future crisis in the Church’s history we, 
brethren, have been wont to think as of something almost 
foreign to the interests and the duties of the present life. 
Even when there is no disposition to question the truth and 
certainty of it, we are yet apt to feel that at any rate we can 
have as little immediate concern with what is so remote and 
dim, as with the ages beyond the flood, or the regions beyond 
the fixed stars. But the Apostles, it must needs be confessed, 
felt otherwise eighteen hundred years ago. Such was the 
vivid earnestness of their faith and desire in regard to this 
event, that, knowing not the day and hour of its occurrence, 
they were fain to anticipate it as just at hand. The wheels 
_of Divine providence, they did know, were already working 
toward this end ; and so Peter speaks of the crowning grace 
to be then received, not as what should be brought to them 
some time or other, but as what was at that very time a-brving- 
ing. It was actually on the way, and might arrive at any 
moment. 

Ever thinking thus in regard to the coming ‘ manifestations 
of the glory of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ,’ 
the primitive Christians, loving their Lord, and therefore lov- 
ing His appearing, could not but find their hearts drawn forth 
to it, as to that which was preéminently their ‘ blessed hope.’* 
And to this their inspired teachers seem to have been daily 
pointing them. ‘ Hope to the end, says our text—or, as more 
correctly in the margin, hope perfectly;—for that which God 
has in store for His children, (vs. 4, 5 ;) that for which ye 


* Tit. 2 : 13, (ἐπιφάνειαν τς δόξης.) 

+ There is no example of τελεζως (which is not found elsewhere in the New 
Testament)=péypt τέλους, (Heb. 3 : 6,) or εἰς τέλος, (Matt. 10 : 22 — which Gro- 
tius here cites.) Our translators put Beza’s latest interpretation, ad finem usque, 
into their text, and retained in the margin his older and better zz/egre. The 
Syriac construction of τηλείως with νήφοντες is adopted by CEcumenius and 
‘a very few moderns. 





Lecture VI.—Chapter τ: 13-16. 63 


were begotten again, (v. 3 ;) that for which all present trials 
are now preparing you, (v. 7 ;) to wit, the joy of the Saviour’s 
second advent. Only let your hope of-that be what it ought, 
and every thing else will follow. 

But wherein, it may be asked, does this perfection of hope 
consist? Observe what the Apostle specifies as its pre- 
requisites: ‘ Having girt up* the loins of your mind, being 
sober. The long, loose garments of the eastern world needed 
the restraint of the girdle, when any labor, or travel, or con- 
flict was to be undertaken, and the body itself was in the 
same way strengthened for the effort. Thus the children of 
Israel, on the night of the Exodus, were to eat the first pass- 
over in haste, with girded loins. And so, when Elijah would 
run before Ahab in that storm of wind and rain, to the en- 
trance of Jezreel, he first ‘girded up his loins.’ Equally es- 
sential was the girdle as a part of the priest’s dress ; and 
David, the man of war, again and again praises God for hav- 
ing girded him with strength unto the battle.t When Chris- 
tians, therefore, were spoken of as pilgrims to the heavenly 
land, or as servants waiting for their Lord, and meanwhile 
doing His work, or as a royal priesthood, or as the soldiers 
of Christ summoned to the good fight of faith, there was no 
precept more natural or more readily intelligible than that, 
which required them to gird up the loins of their mind.f 

This is not to be understood as directed exclusively against 
the sins of uncleanness, but rather as a general caution against 
that dissipation of the thoughts and affections on present 
interests and indulgences of whatever kind, that is plainly 
incompatible with a true religious life, and, in particular, with 
an earnest anticipation of future blessedness—the resolute 
pressing of the whole united soul toward the Christian goal. 
If, brethren, we would keep our garments undefiled—if we 
desire to be always ready for every good word and work—if 
our daily aim is to be found thus of our Lord in peace—and 
if, in order to this, we must live habitually under the light and 
influence of the one hope of our calling—then equally neces- 


* dvafwoduevor—in the New Testament found only here. 
} Ex. 12:11; 28:4; 1 Kings 18: 46; Ps. 18 : 32, 39. 
¢ Luke 12: 35; Eph. 6: 14. 





64 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


sary is it, as a preliminary to all the rest, that we restrain the 
natural wanderings of the heart after the things of time and 
sense, even such of them as are in themselves innocent and 
desirable. 

Of this inward self-control the immediate result and mani- 
festation is an habitual temper of sobriety, which our Apostle 
again and again enjoins on his brethren, (4:7; 5 : 8,) and 
which is mentioned here as another condition of a perfect 
hope: ‘ being sober’ The word is twice* in our version ren- 
dered “20 watch, and the same idea is preferred by many in 
the case before us. But the other is everywhere the proper’ 
sense. As employed by the New Testament writers, the ex- 
pression is just a repetition of our Lord’s own solemn caution 
to His disciples: ‘Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time 
-your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, 
and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you un- 
awares. 7 But, of course—and so much, indeed, is implied in 
that original warning—there is the closest affinity between 
such a Christian temperance of character—moderation in all 
worldly relations and pursuits and enjoyments—and the spirit 
of a wary and vigilant circumspection. 

And now, says the Apostle, ‘having girt up the loins of 
your mind, being sober’—maintaining thus a constant guard 
against the natural looseness and waywardness of your own 
hearts, as well as against the entanglements and distractions of 
the things that are seen and temporal—you will be prepared 
for the exercises and enjoyments of your higher life. Look up- 
ward. Look forward. Hope—‘ferfectly hope’—for that which 
your returning Saviour holds for you in His hand. Thus hop- 
ing, your hope will be without doubts or misgivings—an 
abounding hope—‘sure and steadfast ’—as resting on the fin- 
ished work of Christ, and the immutable promise of God.t It 
will bea patient, enduring, yea, rejoicing, hope ; for what are all 
these light and momentary afflictions, compared with the ‘ far 
more exceeding and eternal weight of glory ’?$ And, finally, it 


* 1 Peter 4:7; 2 Timothy 4 : 5. 

+ Luke 21 : 34. Comp. p. 277, and Lect on Thess. pp. 288, etc. 

ἢ ἘΠῚ 15: Τ ῬΕΈΙΟΡ, 612 ατο Ὁ ΤΟΣ ; 

§ Rom. 5.5238: 255 12:12; 2Corn 431731 Thess ἀπε 2 seidebg eit 


Lecture VI.—Chapter 1 : 13-16. 65 


will be a purifying, assimilating hope, changing you, even while 
you gaze, ‘into the same image from glory to glory, as 4 the 
Spirit of the Lord.’* 

In which last thought we might find a point of transition to 
what follows in the next three verses, which treat of the obliga- 
tion, the measure, and the motives, of Christian holiness. But 
the connection, so far as any connection was intended,t may 
better be regarded as one of reciprocal influence. As the 
Christian hope has in it a sanctifying power, so it is not less 
true that holiness tends to brighten and strengthen hope. 
We need not, however, as some have done, make the 14th 
verse, or even the first clause of it,f grammatically depend- 
ent on the 13th. Still less should the 14th verse be treated 
by itself as containing a separate, complete charge, to be read 
thus: Do not fashion yourselves according to the former lusts 
771 your zgnorance.§ According to what I consider the true 
construction, the whole of the 14th verse is subsidiary to the 
great precept of the 15th, and may be said to determine 
negatively, as the latter verse does positively, the model 
according to which believers are to proceed in ‘perfecting 
holiness.’|| Closely rendered, the two verses might take this 
form: ‘As children of obedience, not conforming yourselves to 
the former lusts in your ignorance, but according to the Holy 
One who called you, be ye yourselves also holy in all your walk. 


And here again, you will observe, the appeal grounds itself 
on the new spiritual relations and qualities of the sojourners. 
Formerly they too had been numbered with ‘the children of 
disobedience.** Disobedience to the divine truth and law had 
been their most prominent constitutional characteristic—per- 
vading, like a family feature, the whole aspect of their moral 
being.tf But that wasin the times of their ‘ ¢gnorance’—igno- 
rance of all that it most concerns man to know—when, like 


ἘΠῚ Cor. 3/2 185) ohm 5.5.9. 

+ Some editors, as Bengel and Trollope, begin a new paragraph with v. rq. 

1 So the Syriac, Luther, and a few others. 

§ The Syriac, Luther, the Dutch, Bengel, MacKnight, Pott, and many others. 

ἘΣ οτ ἜΣΕΙ 20312 55 2 ὉΣ 

tt According to the force of that common Hebrew idiom. Comp. Eph. 2 
TeDhesseise 2255) 2) blessweacha etc. 


66 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


other Gentiles, (for the expression is itself a strong presump- 
tion in favor of the Gentile origin of those here addressed,) 
they ‘knew not God,’* His nature or His will. Cut off thus 
from the Fountain of living waters—the only Source of true 
blessedness—what else remained but to hew out broken cis- 
terns for themselves? seeking such measure of transient, 
impure satisfaction as might be found in giving free scope to 
‘the lusts’ of their depraved nature— fulfilling,’ as Paul says, 
‘the desires of the flesh and of the mind.’ 

Such had been their condition and character ‘ formerly. t 
But even then, while they were yet ‘afar οὔτ᾽ ὃ the voice of 
God reached them, calling, effectually calling, them out of 
darkness into light—into the fellowship of His Son Jesus 
Christ our Lord—yea, themselves also to the adoption of 
children by Jesus Christ to Himself, and so to the hope of 
the children’s inheritance, God’s kingdom and glory.|| Vast 
as was this change, however, in their relations and prospects, 
it implied one of no less importance ‘in the spirit of their 
mind ’**—in their moral tastes and tendencies. They were at 
the same time as effectually ‘called unto holiness.’ ++ In be- 
coming children of God, they became ‘ chzldren of obedience. t% 
They bore the lineaments of the new family to which they now 
belonged. Whereas their one aim in life had been ‘to please 
themselves, their daily study now was, ‘how they ought to 
walk and please God.’§§ With great propriety and force does 
the Apostle, when about to exhort them to holiness, begin by 
reminding them of what they already are, not only by their 
own profession, but according to the Divine purpose itself in 
their calling and regeneration. 

If, then, the inquiry be as to the ultimate end of that pur- 
pose in this respect, and the extent of the corresponding ob- 
ligation, there is involved, first of all, an absolute and per- 
petual divorce from what they most loved and practised of 


ἜΘΟΣ ts 2h5 1 Dhess. 4/2155 εἰ. “See Leck on Thess Β- 7: 
febphe2 135) 4517-10: \ 
mpotepov—here, with the article, used adjectively. 
§ Eph. 2: 17. hn Beten2:: oF mi Corn: ον phim sibs) tebnesseencnna. 
wad Ido 41 8 Aer tt 1 Thess. 4: 7. 
tt τέκνα ὑπακοῆς. SSpRom. το 1; 1655. 45 ἅς 


Lecture VI —Chapter 1 : 13-16. 67 


old: ‘not conforming yourselves to* the former lusts in your 
zenorance. ‘These lusts had been their masters once, and to 
the scheme or course of life which they prescribed a ready 
and eager obedience had been ever yielded. But it must be 
so no longer. Having escaped from the foul tyranny, the 
children of God must not allow themselves to be again 
brought into bondage. The law of sin, which is still in their 
members, is there only as a broken, dishonored, lawless, 
usurping power—one to which the inward man consents not, 
but rather wages with it a truceless war of extermination. 
This is that putting off concerning the former conversation 
the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts— 
that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts—that crucifying 
the flesh with the affections and lusts—that cleansing our- 
selves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit—which is 
everywhere in the New Testament enforced as an indispensa- 
ble part of sanctification.} 

And yet all this,-as I said, is merely the negative side of 
the process. ‘Zhe former lusts in your ignorance’ are not 
your standard. ‘wz, adds Peter, ‘according to the Holy One 
who called you’ $—in the day of your regeneration and con- 
version—‘ be ye yourselves also holy in all your walk. In 
what God has done for you you will find a constraining mo- 
tive to aim at being what He desires you to be; and the 
measure of that is to be found only in what God Himself is. 
Your holiness must, in so far as the limitations of the crea- 
ture allow, accord with the Divine holiness. And think not 
that this will of God for your sanctification§ can safely be 
trifled with or evaded: ‘Because 11 7s written’—was written 
again and again in the law of Moses,|| and stands written,** as 
the declaration to all ages of what is expected and required 
of those whom the Most High at any time admits into cove- 
nant with Him—‘ Be ye holy’—or perhaps, ‘Ye shall be holy— 


* μὴ συσχηματιζόμενοι ταῖς kTA. The only other New Testament instance of 
this verb is Rom. 12 : 2, where see the common version. 

fe Roms) 7 ΒΞ 25; pence at ali tns.2: 2502 342 Core) 7as 1- 

} κατὰ (comp. 1 Peter 4:6; Rom. 15:5; Eph. 2:2, etc.) τὸν καλέσαντα 
ὑμᾶς ἅγιον. ‘ 
δ Τ᾿ Ress 4s 9: Ἐν ττξ 1 ν" τὸ: 2; 20: ἢ: ** γέγραπται. 


68 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


Sor [am holy’* The reason is as cogent as the command is 
solemn. ‘Can two walk together except they be agreed ?’} 
What concord, then, can there be betwixt an unholy soul and 
the thrice holy God ? | 

The holiness of God, says John Howe,{ ‘may be styled a 
transcendental attribute, that as it were runs through the 
rest, and casts a glory upon every one: ’tis an attribute of at- 
tributes. Those are fit predications, holy power, holy truth, 
holy love, etc. And so it is the very lustre and glory of His 
other perfections ; He is glorious in holiness. Or we may 
say, it is the essential light of the Divine nature, into whose 
composition enter the mingled rays of the other attributes, as 
justice, goodness, and truth. In that light ‘is no darkness at 
all,” § and it sheds a beauty, at once lovely and venerable, on 
all the thoughts and purposes, on all the works and ways, of 
God. 

The requisition therefore is, that the holiness of the be- 
liever shall, both in its quality and its universality, be a reflec- 
tion of that of ‘the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eter- 
nity, whose name is Holy.’|| Yes, according to that supreme 
example,** and after no inferior model, ‘de ye yourselves also 
holy in all your walk’ t}—in every movement of your heart 
and life—in secret, as well as before the public eye—in the 
family, as well as in church—in your secular affairs, whether 
of business or politics, no less than in the exercises of devo- 
tion. 


Let us, then, in conclusion, try ourselves by these precepts 
of our Apostle. And what serious questions for this purpose 
are presented by every clause! 

Thus, be our religious profession what it may, it may well 
be asked whether it could be said of us with any show of 
truth, that with girded loins and a sober mind we, as our 
primitive brethren were instructed, are ‘both hoping and 


* Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford read ἔσεσϑε, ye shall be, (Sin. A, B, C,) and 
cancel éuui, am, (Sin. A, B.) Sin. also has διό, for διότι. 

t Amos 3 : 3. 1.716 Blessedness of the Righteous, chap. v. 

§ 1 John 1: 5. isee5 702) ΤῈΣ 

** Bengel: ‘Summum exemplum.’ 

tt καὶ αὐτοὶ ἅγιοι ἐν πάσῃ ἀναστροφῇ γενήϑητε. 


Lecture VI—Chapter 1 : 13-16. 69 


quietly waiting for the salvation of the Lord’*—that final, 
complete salvation, which the Lord Himself brings to us, 
when He comes again. ‘Peter's design, says Calvin, ‘is to 
summon us forth from the world ; and most suitable for that 
end is the thought of Christ’s advent. Thither if we would 
turn our eyes, this world becomes crucified to us, and we to 
the world.’+ Have we ever had this mark of a true Christian 
experience? Alas! to what asad degree have we lost it! 
And meanwhile our plans and affections, our desires and 
hopes, are still prone to run riot amidst the fleshly and fleeting 
interests of time. But ‘certainly, remarks Leighton, ‘the 
Captain of our salvation will not own them for His followers, 
who lie down-to drink of these waters, but only such as in 
passing take of them with their hand.’ And again he says: 
‘This is the place of our trial and conflict, but the place 
of our rest is above. We must here have “our loins girt ;” 
but when we come there, we may wear our long white robes 
at their full length without disturbance, for there is nothing 
there but peace, and without danger of defilement, for “no 
unclean thing is there,” yea, the streets of that New Jerusalem 
are paved with pure gold. To Him, then, who hath prepared 
that city for us, let us ever give praise.’ 

And, finally, if we claim to have our citizenship in heaven, 
let us justify our pretension, and confirm our hope, and pre- 
pare for its fullest realization, by now making holiness—con- 
formity to the Divine nature and will—the object of our most 
earnest pursuit.t Need I say, that the obligation to this has 
been in no sense impaired by the grace of the Gospel? He 
who hung upon the cross—our effectual Sin-offering, and 
glorious Ransom—is the same who sat upon the mountain, 
and taught His disciples, saying: ‘ Blessed are the pure in 
heart: for they shall see God . . . Be ye therefore perfect, 
even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.’§ 


ἐπ ΤΠ της 2. τ. 20: ; 

t ‘Consilium enim Petri est, evocare nos extra mundum,: ad eam rem aptissi- 
ma est adventus Christi memoria. Nam si illuc dirigimus oculos, mundus hic 
nobis crucifixus est, et nos mundo.’ 

t Heb. 12 : 14, (διώκετε... τὸν ἁγιασμὸν.) 

ὃ Matt. 5 : 8, 48. 


LPECTOREIT Ty. 


Pe TPR a 2. 


‘ AND if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth accord- 
ing to every man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear: foras- 
much as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and 
gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers ; but 
with the precious blood of Christ, as of alamb without blemish and without spot : 
who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was mani- 
fest in these last times for you, who by Him do believe in God, that raised Him up 
from the dead, and gave Him glory ; that your faith and hope might be in God.’ 


THE writer had exhorted his brethren to holiness ; he now 
exhorts them to fear, And the very manner in which he 
passes from the one exhortation to the other implies a close 
affinity between the two. It at once reminds us of Paul’s 
expression, ‘perfecting holiness in the fear of God;* the 
fear of God furnishing a powerful motive to holiness, or rather 
that temper and element of the soul, in which alone holiness 
can exist and thrive. ‘Fear God, says the preacher, ‘and 
keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.’ 
The first thing is in order to the second, and infallibly secures 
it. And so God’s gracious promise concerning Israel is: ‘I 
will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart 
from me.’} 

In Scripture, accordingly, it is quite common to find this 
fear put for holiness itself, or the sum of true religion. It is 
not, therefore, such a fear as seized the hearts of our first 
parents, when, hearing the voice of the Lord God, they hid 
themselves amongst the trees of the garden ; nor such as sud- 


AC On 7nd { Eccl. 12 : 13; Jer. 327: 40; 


Lecture VI[.—Chapter 1 : 17-21. FE 


denly quenched the noise of royal revelry in the night of 
Babylon’s overthrow ; nor such as, on some day yet future, 
shall drive despairing sinners to the unavailing shelter of the 
mountains and rocks.* It is not the fear of guilty distrust, 
or of hatred, or of bondage—that fear which hath torment, 
and which perfect love casteth out ;f but, as our whole con- 
text shows, a fear compatible with the highest privileges, 
attainments, and hopes, of the Christian life. It is the fear of 
deep humility and reverence, of filial subjection, and adoring 
gratitude ; the fear which ‘blesseth the Lord,’ saying, ‘ His 
mercy endureth for ever. It is the fear of Jacob, when he 
‘awaked out of his sleep’ from visions of heavenly grace and 
glory, and knew that God was in that place; of Moses, to 
whom ‘the Lord spake face to face, as a man speaketh unto 
his friend ; of awe-struck seraphim, celebrating with veiled 
faces the Divine holiness ; of the favored disciples on the 
mount of the Transfiguration, even while they felt it good to 
be there ; of repentant and believing Israel, of whom it is 
foretold, that they ‘shall fear the Lord and His goodness in 
the latter days.§ It is thus a sentiment no less appropriate 
to the state of final perfection. Throughout eternity saints 
and angels, growing ever in the knowledge and the love, will 
grow also in the fear, of Him whom the redeemed tribes sang 
of old by the Red Sea as ‘fearful in praises.’|| That ‘song of 
Moses, the servant of God,’ is ‘ the song of the Lamb,’ and it 
is sung evermore by the victorious harpers whom John saw 
standing on the sea of glass mingled with fire: ‘Great and 
marvellous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and 
true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints. Who shall not 
fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy name? for Thou only art 
holy.’** Yes, ‘God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of 
the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are 
about Him.’}} 


* Gen. 3: 8, 10; Dan. 5:6; Rev. 6: 16. 

tf Rom. 8:15; 1 Johng: 18. 

ἘΒΕΝ1 75. 22013, ΤΠ τς 

§ Gen. 28: τό, 17; Ex. 33:11, (Heb. 12: 21;) Is. 6:2, 3; Mark 9: 5,6; 
Hos. 3: 5. 

ΠΕΣ: τι: τα; ἘΠ Rev. 15 : 2-. Ti Ps. 89 : 7. 


72 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


You will observe, however, that our Apostle has special 
reference to the present time of conflict and trial, or as he 
calls it, the time of sojourning: ‘ Pass the t2me’—or more 
exactly, walk, during the time— of your sojourning, in fear ;* 
as if there were something in the character of the time itself, 
that might well add force to the precept. 

During the time of their sojourning the children of God 
are from home. They are in a strange land—a hostile land 
—beset by many evil influences, and temptations to forget 
their Father’s house, disown or compromise their heavenly 
citizenship, and cast in their lot with those around. The 
powerful and crafty spirits of darkness are in league against 
them, and eagerly watch for their halting. But allied with 
these—inviting and aiding every external solicitation and as- 
sault—is the still remaining corruption of their own nature. 
There is, therefore, reason enough within and without, why 
the most mature Christian in this world, even while rejoicing 
in the full assurance of hope with a joy unspeakable and full 
of glory, should yet ‘serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice 
with trembling. Walking in the midst of dangers and 
snares, it behooves him to walk in fear—the fear, if not of 
being finally lost, yet of meanwhile stumbling, offending God, 
bringing dishonor on the truth, prejudicing the souls of 
others, troubling his own present peace, and impairing his 
own future reward. It is, indeed, only during the time of 
sojourning, that these risks exist, and this salutary apprehen- 
sion is called for. They will have no place in that better 
land, where the spirits of the just made perfect do always 
behold the face of God. 


But there are two other considerations, by which the exhor- 
tation to a religious fear is here mainly enforced. These are 
the judicial character of God, and the greatness of the ransom — 
by which sinners have been redeemed. 


* ἐν φόβῳ τὸν τῆς παροικίας ὑμῶν χρόνον ἀναστράφητε (Sin. ἀναστρεφόμενοι)--- 
the verb from which comes ἀραστροφῇ of ν. 15, (see p. 68.)—Xodvov (time) is 
simply the accusative of duration. The construction which our translators 
adopted (along with the superfluous supplement, Zee) from previous English ver- 
sions, is not sustained by the Greek usage. 

t Psalm 2: 11. 


Lecture VI1—Chapter τ: 17-21. 73 


1. First, God’s judicial character: ‘And if ye call on the 
Father’—or rather, And if ye call Him Father*— who with- 
out respect of persons judgeth according to every man’s work, 
walk, during the time of your sojourning, in fear. 

Ye call God Father. Our translators seem to have under- 
stood Peter as referring to God either as the universal Father 
or as the Father of Christ. But the context (vs. 3, 4, 14) and 
the form of the original lead us rather to think of God’s 
paternal relation to believers ; and so it is generally explain- 
ed.j The opinion is even as old as Bede, that there is here 
an express allusion to the first words of the Lord’s Prayer: 
‘Our Father, which art in heaven.’t 

You call, then, says the Apostle, God Father—your Father. 
So much may be assumed on the ground simply of your Chris- 
tian standing ;$ and what a motive is there in this, not only far 
a cheerful, hopeful, loving obedience, but, in your present cir-- 
cumstances, for the utmost care and circumspection, lest by a 
walk unsuitable to your high profession, you grieve His love, 
and incur His displeasure, even if you do not provoke Him 
to cast you off utterly. Remember, however—(and this is 
here the principal point)—that He whom you call Father is 
also Judge—every man’s Judge—your Judge. Beware of so 
far presuming on what His grace has done for you, as to sup- 
pose that you are now exempt from the scrutiny and control 


* Tlatépa ἐπικαλξισϑε τὸν κτλ. 

7 Even by some (Stier, Peile, Huther, Alford, etc.) who retain the sense given 
in our version to the verb: zf [szzce] ye call on Him for, or, as, [a] Father, who, 
etc. ; to which the objection of Steiger and De Wette, that this would require ὡς 
(as) before πατέρα (Father) need not be considered fatal. (See 1 Thess. 5 : 8, 
where De Wette himself has a/s Helm.) Still the exegesis adopted above is 
simpler, and is followed by very many. Huther objects to it, that, excepting a 
doubtful passage in Dio Cassius, we have no classical instance of the middle 
ἐπικαλξισϑαι in the sense of ¢o call, [nennen.] But since fo name, or surname, is a 
very common meaning of the active verb, and in the passive form is frequently 
recognized in the New Testament, the middle also may be so employed in this 
case with strict grammatical propriety : ‘if ye give to Him, who is the impartial. 
Judge of all, the additional name of your Father.’ 

+ Bloomfield refers also to Jer. 3 : 19, πατέρα καλέσετέ με, (where some MSS. 
have ἐπικαλξισϑε.) 

ὃ But there is no need of changing, as many do, the hypothetical zf into the 
assertory or causal s¢zce. Comp. Lect. on Thess. p. 433. 


74 Lectures on the first Epistle of Peter. 


of His holy and righteous administration, or that, in dealing 
with you, the principles of strictest equity, which rule in all 
other cases, are to be exchanged for a partial and indulgent 
favoritism. There is no such ‘ vespect of persons’* with God. 
As we all pass under His judgment, so in no case is that 
judgment determined or affected by aught that is merely 
outward and adventitious, such as distinctions of nation, or 
rank, or fortune, or color, or education, or religious profession ; 
except, indeed, as these matters may be found to bear on the 
one single topic of investigation, to wit, every one’s work. 
‘Without respect of persons, God judgeth according to every 
one's work.} So He himself has declared, in the person of 
Him to whom all judgment is committed: ‘ Behold, I come 
quickly ; and my reward is with me, to give every man ac- 
cording as his work shall be.’ 

Not works, as is sometimes said elsewhere,§ but work ; and 
the expression is significant. It embraces whatever pertains 
to character and the moral activities, inward and outward, 
and thus includes an immense extent and variety and compli- 
cation of details, such as no eye but that of Omniscience can 
traverse, much less take in at a glance, determining with 
infallible accuracy the precise award that belongs to the 
whole as a unit. It is true, when our Lord was asked, ‘ What 
shall we do, that we might work the works of God ?’ His reply 
was : ‘This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom 
He hath sent.’|| But it is so, not merely because ‘a man is 
justified by faith without the deeds of the law,’ but also be- 
cause in no other way is he sanctified. ‘ Without faith it is 
impossible to please’ God, faith being the very root—the 
soul—of all acceptable obedience. It works by love, and so 
purifies the heart and the life.** 

Before the Supreme Tribunal, then, every man is judged 
according to his work; not the scattered acts, which draw 
the world’s regard, and which alone it censures or applauds, 
but his entire development, and that in connection with its 


* ἀπροσωπολήπτως---(51η.---λήμπτως) ---ἰῃ the New Testament only here. 
t τὸ ἐκάστου ἔργον. + Revelation 22 : 12. 

§ Rom. 2:6; Rev. 20: 12, 13. || John 6 : 28, 29. 

** Rom. 3:28; Heb. 11:6; Gal. 5:6; Acts 15:9. 


Lecture VIT—Chapter 1 : 17-21. 75 


formative, animating principle—the heart, and all its issues. 
Where the heart has not believed unto righteousness in the 
one atoning, reconciling High-Priest, there no confession of 
the mouth, and no efforts nor sacrifices of the unrenewed, un- 
pardoned soul can avail for salvation.* But this is not all. 
The soul itself may be resting on the Divine foundation, and 
still have mighty interests at stake, according as it ‘ buildeth 
thereon.’ Let no misconception of the blessed doctrine of a 
gratuitous justification tempt us to forget, that the super- 
structure also forms a large and essential part of ‘the work, 
according to which not only every preacher, but every sincere 
believer, shall be judged. It would be well for us all, Chris- 
tian brethren, every morning that we rise from our beds, 
thoughtfully to repeat, each one to himself, those words of in- 
spiration: ‘Let every man take heed how he buildeth there- 
upon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, 
which is Jesus Christ. Nowif any man build upon this foun- 
dation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble ; every 
man’s work shall be made manifest : for the day shall declare 
it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try 
every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work 
abide, which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a re- 
ward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer 
loss: but he himself shall be saved ; yet so as by fire. + As 
among the lost there are those who shall be beaten with 
many, others with few stripes, so to the saints of God shall be 
distributed crowns of varied brightness, as ‘ star differeth from 
star in glory. There is sucha thing as having ‘the entrance 
ministered unto us abundantly into the everlasting kingdom 
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ’§$—entering the harbor, 
as I have seen it expressed somewhere, with all sails set ; and 
there is such a thing as ‘seeming’—though it may be only 
seeming—‘ to come short’ of the heavenly rest||—being cast 
ashore, as from shipwreck. But in neither case is this the 
result of chance, or of a capricious, arbitrary allotment. In 
both cases there is a manifestation of that judgment of God, 


* Rom. 10 : I0. t 1 Cor. 3 : 10-15. 
¢ Luke 12 : 47, 48; 1 Cor. 15 : 41, (ἀστὴρ γὰρ ἀστέρος κτλ.) 
ὃ 2 Peter 1 : 11, (ἡ εἴσοδος.) || Heb. 4: 1. 


76 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


which, with an absolute impartiality and an unerring exact- 
ness, proportions every man’s reward to his work. And sure- 
ly this one principle of God’s dealing with us all, His children 
and His enemies alike, does supply a strong motive for che- 
rishing a spirit of religious fear, as our Apostle here enjoins. 


2. The other motive of no less persuasive force is the great- 
ness of the ransom by which sinners have been redeemed. 

‘ Forasmuch as ye know, or simply, knowing*—what follows 
is not, as we have seen, the sole ground of the previous 
exhortation, but an additional, confirmatory consideration ; 
‘knowing that not with corruptible things,} silver or gold,t. 
were ye redeemed from your vain conversation, or walk—(the 
word is the same as in the 15th verse)—‘ received dy tradition 
from your fathers, or handed down from your fathers. The 
whole of this phrase stands for a single compound expres- 
sion in the original §—one that occurs in the New Testament 
only here, and cannot be reproduced in form by any English 
equivalent. ereditary, however, would convey the essential - 
idea. Those, to whom Peter wrote, had been redeemed from 
their hereditary vain walk—a style of reference to their for- 
mer life, that again favors the idea of their Gentile origin. 

That former life of theirs was ‘vazz,’ idle, empty, as to all 
the higher ends of existence, and had produced for them, 
as they were well aware, no lasting good results whatever. 
‘What fruit had ye then in those things,’ the writer seems to 
say, ‘whereof ‘ye are now ashamed?’|| True, they walked 
as their fathers had walked before them. The way had been 
beaten broad and smooth by the feet of many generations. 
Accordant with their own corrupt tendencies, it was more- 
over associated with their tenderest recollections; yea, forti- 
fied, and almost consecrated to their hearts, by the venerable- 
ness of age and ancestral authority. But all this, while it in 
no degree relieved or justified the vanity of their old life, 





* εἰδότες. + The Greek order. 

t ἀργυρίῳ ἢ χρυσίῳ. The only other places, I believe, where our version makes 
ἤ (or )=kai, (and, ) are Mark 6 : 11 and 1 Cor. 11 : 27—‘ Most unfairly,’ says Al- 
ford, in the last instance. A more charitable explanation is, that our translators 
simply followed their leader Tt the Geneva and Bishops’ Re 

ὃ πατροπαράδοτος. || Rom. 6: 


e 


Lecture VII—Chapter 1 : 17-21, ἢ 


served rather to render their subjection to sin and death more 
rigorous and hopeless. 

From this miserable bondage, however, they had been freed 
—freed, not by force, but in law—freed by redemption. A 
price had been paid for them, and now they walked at liberty, 
keeping God’s commandments. As we have already had 
occasion to remark in substance, the same act of gracious 
interposition, that flung open the prison-house of their con- 
demnation, struck also from their spirits the chains of dark- 
ness. The same voice, that recalled the dead Lazarus to life, 
said also: ‘ Loose him, and let him go.”* 

But if ‘bought with a price,’ at what price? ‘ Voz,’ says 
Peter, ‘with corruptible things ’—perishable things—even the 
best and most highly prized of them, ‘ sz/ver or gold? At the 
most, these things could avail only for an outward, ceremonial 
redemption.{ Not all the mines of earth—not all the splen- 
dors of the skies—could be taken in exchange for one soul of 
man. Between such things and that which is spiritual and 
immortal, there exists no relation of comparative value.§ 
What, then, was the price?) No man ‘can by any means re- 
deem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him.’ A heca- 
tomb of angels would not suffice. Nothing, nothing but the 
blood*of Christ—‘ zhe precious blood’—precious in the eye of 
God—precious in the sight of wondering angels—precious, 
how precious! to the sprinkled heart of faith—‘the precious 
blood, as of a lamb faultless and spotless, of Christ.’|| The 
-personal holiness of the Saviour enters as an essential ele- 


* Acts 12 : 7-10; John 11 : 43, 44. taCor O20; 

+ Ex. 30 : 12-16; Numb. 3 : 46-51; 18: 15, 16. 

§ Ps. 49 : 7-9; Matt. 16 : 26. 

|| The Greek order—dydpov καὶ doridiov.—Brown, after Eadie, (as he says,) 
gives the verse thus : ‘ But by precious blood, as of a lamb perfect and spotless, 
the blood of Christ.’ This, however, is no new construction, (it may be seen in Pag- 
ninus, Beza, Piscator, and one or two others. Alford adopts it,) and it is, I think, 
erroneous. Mere blood cannot well be opposed to corruptible things, and, in 
relation to the redemption of sinners, blood is precious, not simply as blood, nor 
even as the blood of animal sacrifices, however perfect in their kind, (Heb. 9 : 12; 
10 : I-9, etc.,) but only when it is the blood of Christ, and is thought of as His. 
The common construction, therefore, is to be preferred, which takes αἵματι 
(blood) as immediately defined by Χριστόυ, (of Christ, ) and the words interposed, 
as of a lamb, etc., asa parenthetical, explanatory illustration. 


78 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


ment into all right estimate of the preciousness of His blood, 
and the efficacy of His atonement. 

Here, then, brethren, is the Sin-offering—the true and only 
Paschal Lamb of heaven and earth. For you will mark the 
joint interest of both in this great Sacrifice: ‘Christ, who 
verily was forcordained, or, if we retain the precise idea and 
form of the original, ‘ Christ, foreknown, indeed, before the 
foundation of the world, but manifested in the last times for 
you. * 

‘Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of 
the world’+ They are known to Him as His works, and, 
therefore, as what He has already purposed to do. But the 
facility of transition from one of these two conceptions, or 
modes of expression, to the other, is not sufficierit warrant for 
confounding the two. Nor, in fact, have our translators intro- 
duced the idea of foreordination in any of the other six places, 
where this verb or its kindred noun occurs.t 

Chief among the works of God, in the momentousness of 
its relations both to God and the creatures, is the incarnation 
of His Son. For this all previous works of creation and 
providence but prepared the way, and now in the person of 
Immanuel ‘all things consist ’§$—have their common centre 
of union, order, and stability. The like preéminence—as our 
Apostle, we learn from the Book of Acts, loved to teach also 
in his oral discourses||—belonged to Christ in the thoughts 
of God from eternity. As the lamb of the Jewish passover 
was singled out from the flock some days before it was slain,** 
so this Lamb of God was ‘ foreknown before the foundation of 
the world, +} and ‘for Him ’—for His revelation, His use, and 

7, 

* mpo-(Sin. ἀν-)εγνωσμένου uv... . φανερωϑέντος δὲ ἐπ’ ἐσχάτων τῶν χρόνων. 
It is possible that the conspicuz facti of Beza’s last edition may account for the use 
by our translators, in this instance, of an adjective in rendering φανερωϑέντος ; 
in which particular the English version differs from all other preceding and al- 
most all subsequent versions, English and foreign.—It may also be worth while 
to note the change from the perfect to the aorist : ‘Aas been foreknown .. . was 
manifested.’ 

+ Acts 15 : 18. f 1 Peter.1':.2; Rom.3:293 11325 etc,  Comp..p.i4. 

§ Col. 1: 17, (ἐν αὐτῷ.) AtctsFo noah Gatco oea: ** Exodus 12 : 3-6. 


++ Comp. Rev. 13 : 8, (though the construction there is, at best, doubtful. See 
the Revision, Note 7.) 


Lecture VII—Chapter τ: 17-21. 79 


His glory—the world itself was made.* And even then the 
ages were suffered to pass silently on. The transgression and 
fall of angels and of man proclaimed the weakness and inse- 
curity of all creatures at their best estate, and that the final 
rest of the Creator in them was not yet attained. Dispensa- 
tion followed dispensation, and still only shadow and type and 
prophecy turned the devout and wistful eye toward the slow- 
ly dawning mystery ; till, lo! ‘2 the last times’—or rather, 
in the last of the times, or in the end of the times ;+ the Mes- 
sianic age being at once the consummation of all that pre- 
ceded it, and itself the ultimate divine economy—the Word 
was made flesh, and the Christ of God’s eternal counsels was 
‘manifested’ in the Virgin’s Son. 

Now, whatever other wise and good ends that manifesta- 
tion was designed to secure, its immediate, primary object 
was the salvation of men. It was, says Peter, in the same 
spirit of direct personal application of the general truth to 
those whom he addresses, that had been already exemplified 
at the 4th verse—it was ‘for you, who throught Him’— 
through the grace and truth and power that came by Him,§ 
and shined even to you—have cast away your idols, abjured 
your former vain walk, and now ‘ delicvel| zz God, not 
only as the living and true God, but as your own God 
and Father. This He is, and you are enabled to believe 
in Him as such, only on the ground of His relations to 
Christ, and especially because He ‘ raised ’** Christ ‘from the 
dead, and, in reward of your Redeemer’s ‘deep voluntary hu- 
miliation for your sakes, ‘gave Him glory, by exalting Him 
to His own right hand, and making Him Head over all 
things to the Church, ‘so ¢hat’—assured thus of the accep- 
tance of your sacrifice, and of the remission of your sins, and 


EMT Ol) Ws LO? 

{ ἐπ’ ἐσχάτου τῶν χρόνων, (Sin, ἐπ᾽ ἐσχάτου τοῦ χρόνου) is edited by Wells, 
Lachmann, Tischendorf, Theile, Alford, after A,B,C. Τὸ 5 interesting to note 
how frequently the conclusions of the latest textual criticism were anticipated by 
an English clergyman more than a century ago. Comp. 2 Peter 3 : 2. 

t dud—as in v. 3, and Thess. 5 : 9, etc. 

§ John 1: 12, 17. 

| Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford read πιστοὺς, (A, B.) 

** éyeipavta. See our version at Matt. 10: 8; Gal. 1:1; Col. 2: 12, etc. 


So Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


of the kindness and good will of God, who hath given all 
power to One who so loved you—‘ your faith and hope, so 
long squandered on things that could not profit, ‘ skou/d’ now 
and henceforth ‘ de zx God.* 

But let us, before we close, recall the purpose for which all 
this is here adduced—namely, to supply another reason why 
believers should ‘ zwalk, during the time of their sojourning, in 
fear” And who, that has any measure of faith in these 
things, can think of the mighty plan and preparations of God 
for our redemption from the vanity of a sinful life—can come 
into the presence of the cross, and see the Lamb amid the 
fires of the altar, knowing all the while that the purpose of 
His dying heart was to carry that plan into full effect, by ‘re- 
deeming us from all iniquity, and purifying us unto Himself 
a peculiar people, zealous of good works ’+—can then look up 
to the throne of God, and there behold that same Lamb that 
was slain still watching over us with His eyes of love—who, I 
say, can duly ponder these blessed, but most solemn, verities, 
and not shudder at the thought of sinking down again, 
through our own carelessness and levity and false security, 
into the very slavery from which we have been rescued, and 
so receiving all this grace of God, and of God’s Son, in vain ? 
Ah! my hearers, that sin and that hell are not trifles, from 
which we can be saved only by Christ’s precious blood. See 
that you do not trifle with them, or with that blood. ‘Work 
out your own salvation with fear and trembling : for it is God 
which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good 
pleasure.’ t 

‘Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be 
moved, let us have grace, whereby’we may serve God accep- 
tably with reverence and godly fear.’§ 





* ὥστε τὴν πίστιν... εἷναι. Most versions, from the Syriac and Vulgate 
down, agree with the English version in making ὥστε (so that) here equal to iva 
(in order that.) Nor is such a use of the former, though rare, without example 
in the New Testament, (Matt. 27:1; Luke 4:29, as most now read; 9:52.) 
Many, however, are content with the more common ecbatic sense: so that your 
faith and hope are in God; which, in connection with the first clause of the verse, 
sounds somewhat tautological. Perhaps neither view is to be entirely excluded ; 
but Gore with the infinitive may here express, as sometimes in classical Greek, 
the purposed result ; though this cannot, I think, be given-quite satisfactorily in 
English. 

t Titus 2: 14. Tee hile 15: § Heb. 12: 28, 


LEC LORE. VEEL. 


tT PELE 1 "22-25. 


‘ SEEING ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit 
unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure 
heart fervently: being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, 
by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. For all flesh is as grass, 
and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the 
flower thereof falleth away: but the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And 
this is the word which by the Gospel is preached unto you.’ 


To hope, holiness, and a walk in fear, the Apostle now 
adds love of the brethren, as an essential, crowning grace, and 
one springing directly, like those other fruits of the Spirit, 
from the rich soil of Christian privilege. 

In the day of your conversion—he had said—ye were be- 
gotten again to a living hope through the resurrection of 
Jesus Christ from the dead ; let your hope, in its quality and 
influence, be perfect like its foundation and warrant. Ye 
were called with a holy calling by the voice of Him who is 
holy ; be ye in all things, as dear children, imitators of the 
Divine’ holiness.* Your Father is also your Judge—an im- 
partial Judge, and the price of your redemption from the 
vanity of sin was nothing less than the blood of Christ. But 
your actual deliverance is not yet complete, and meanwhile in 
these lands of your sojourning—in this present evil world— 
your road lies through the midst of enemies, and snares, and 
pitfalls. On all these accounts, therefore, walk in fear. Nor 
are these various sentiments and aims of the life of faith in- 
consistent one with the other. On the contrary, they are 


* Eph, 5 : 1, (μιμηταί.) 


82 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


mutually helpful; hope promoting and animating holiness, 
and holiness confirming hope; while both, so far from tend- 
ing to a careless presumption, are themselves shielded and 
secured by the spirit of godly jealousy and watchful solicitude. 

And there is yet something more—he now seems to say. 
You sojourn among strangers ; but your dwelling is in the 
household of faith. You call God Father; and so do your 
brethren. Your faces are toward the heavenly inheritance ; 
and they are joint-heirs with you. See that you fall not out 
by the way. If the world hates you, love one another. And 
remember that the obligation in this case is equally sacred 
and binding as in the cases already mentioned. It is involved 
in the very nature and design of your conversion and regene- 
ration. 

‘Having purified* your souls’—that inner spiritual region, 
in which are the roots of every Christian virtue. Not, in- 
deed, while the soil is yet unbroken, and overrun with all 
noxious weeds and unclean things. The love, especially, here 
spoken of, is not any natural instinct, or kindliness of disposi- 
tion. It is a love peculiar to those new relations of kindred, 
which are established by the new birth—the love of a purified 
soul. And the verse before us specifies the means, the 
Agent, and one result of this purification. 


The means by which, or the element zz which, it is effected, 
is ‘ the obedience of the truth’}—the truth which in the subse- 
quent context is presently identified as the word of the Lord, 
the Gospel of salvation.t No other truth, such as is taught 
in the schools of human philosophy and learning, avails to 
the cleansing of the soul; nothing but that Divine word of 
truth, on which the bleeding Saviour, when about to leave 
His disciples in the midst of this world’s defilements, still 
relied for their sanctification. The prayer was answered in 
the blessed experience, not of the Apostles alone, but of them 
also who believed on Christ through their word; as Peter 
himself rose up and testified in the Council of Jerusalem, that 
God had put no difference between Jews and Gentiles, purify- 
ing the hearts of both by faith, Those to whom he now 


* ἡγνικότες. τῇ T ἐν ὑπακοῇ. τ Οοπῖρ, 2 Οὐ. Ζύη ι; ΕἸΡΗΣ ἘΠῚ 12. Εἴ: 


Lecture VIII.—Chapter 1 : 22-25. 83 


wrote had undergone the same process, and in the same way. 
They had obeyed the truth, and their obedience was the obe- 
dience of faith,* and faith even in its first actings had puri- 
fied, and in its continuous exercise was still purifying, their 
souls. As the basis of the present exhortation, it is assumed, 
that what they had thus gained would not be lost, nor this 
operation of faith be suspended.t 


The text adds, ‘through the Spirit; and thus represents 
the Holy Spirit as the Agent, by whose aid these converts, 
in obeying the truth, had effected the purification of their 
souls. The doctrine, indeed, of the necessity of Divine grace 
in order to all spiritual life and effort is again and again taught 
in this chapter, as it is everywhere else in Scripture. It is 
even prominent in the very next verse here. But in this par- 
ticular clause the words are now generally regarded as an in- 
terpolation ;t and so I shall not dwell on them. 


Observe, then, in the third place, the tendency and result 
of the purification: ‘wnto brotherly love, or ‘kindness un- 
Jeigned.§ Formerly, like other unrenewed men, they had 
‘lived in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.’ 
From the lusts that warred in their own members came mu- 
tual wars and fightings.|| But that old tempestuous disorder 
of the heart had been calmed in the presence of the heavenly 
Lamb. From ‘the leaven of malice and wickedness’ their 
souls had been purified—washed and sanctified. They had 
thus become at once more capable of loving, and more worthy 
of each other's love. At the same time there was born within 
them the sense of a new affinity—the consciousness of the 


* John 17:17, 20; Acts 15:9; Romans 2:8; 16:26. Seep. 20. 

+ ἡγνικότες, therefore, should neither, on the one hand, be restricted to the faith 
of conversion, nor, on the other, treated as a present participle, (Vulgate, Calvin, 
etc.,) or an imperative mood, (Luther, Castalio, Carpzov, Pott, etc.) 

1 So Mill, De Wette, Huther, Wiesinger, etc. Griesbach marks them as very 
doubtful, and they are cancelled by Wells, Meyer, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Al- 
ford, on the authority of Sin. A, B, C, many cursive MSS., and most ancient ver- 
sions. 

ὃ φιλαδελφίαν ἀνυπόκριτον. See on 2 Peter 1:7. 

|| Titus 3:33; James 4:1. 


84 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


dear, sacred, eternal brotherhood of all who love the one Lord 
Jesus Christ in sincerity. Sitting together glad captives at 
His blessed feet, they could almost anticipate, as, when ut- 
tered by His lips, they joyfully assented to, the new com- 
mandment : ‘ Love one another, as I have loved you.’* Every 
instinct and impulse of the Divine nature whereof they were 
now partakers responded instantly to the gracious authority 
of the Master. The nearer they pressed to Him, they found 
themselves nearer to one another. The great change that 
had been wrought in each could have no other issue than ina 
‘brotherly kindness unfetgned’—love without a mask—‘ with- 
out dissimulation’—‘not in word, neither in tongue, but in 
deed and in truth. 


And now, in close connection with the principles that 
evinced the reasonableness of the precept, and supplied strong 
motives for its observance, the writer presses home the pre- 
cept itself: ‘Having purified your souls in the obedience of the 
truth unto brotherly kindness unfeigned, out of a pure heart 
love one another fervently’ Ifin your hearts the purity was, 
and is, unto love, let the combination be seen also in your 
life; not love without purity, nor yet purity without love. 
Nay, ‘love one another; only let the clearness of the stream, 
that brightens and gladdens the scenes of your daily inter- 
course, attest the purity of the fountain whence it flows. 
Then ‘love fervently, or, as the word§ denotes, ztensely. 


23 1 (Cord cry Poe ΠΟΙ oy A 12: 

iMRonl12)10);5 5 John 37213, 

+ Wakefield and Brown connect ἐκ καϑαρᾶς καρδίας, as a second attributive 
with φιλαδελφίαν (= brotherly love out of a pure heart.) But this introduces into 
the protasis an unnecessary pleonasm; whereas by retaining both the common 
construction and the Greek order, as above, we bring out a rather striking rhe- 
torical correspondence in the apodosis, of ἐκ καϑαρᾶς καρδίας to τὰς ψυχὰς ὑμῶν 
ἡγνικότες, ἀλλήλους ἀγαπήσατε to εἰς φιλαδελφίαν, and ἐκτενῶς to ἀνυπόκριτον.--- 
The English supplement, see that, was probably suggested simply by a regard to 
euphony, though it is true that the Greek aorist imperative does convey some- 
thing of the same impression of urgency. Whitby and Macknight, in translating 
it» by a future, ye shall [will] love, may have been misled by what in Grotius was 
no doubt an oversight, or error of the press, dyat#oere——Lachmann, Tischen- 
dorf, and Alford cancel the word καϑαρὰς, (A, B.) 

ὃ ἐκτενῶς. Comp. ἐκτενῆ, ch. 4 : 8. 


Lecture VII1—Chapter τ: 22-25. 85 


Yield yourselves without hesitation or reserve to the prompt- 
ings of your better nature. Be not ashamed of your love, nor 
afraid to manifest it on all suitable occasions, and in all ap- 
propriate ways, even to the laying down, like your Lord, your 
lives for the brethren. Never forget that, in God’s family, 
love is ‘the principal thing ’—‘ the bond of perfectness ’—the 
flower and consummation of the Christian character.* 


The 23d verse reverts once more to the fact and the man- 
ner of their regeneration, as confirmatory of the obligation to 
a pure and intense brotherly love: ‘ Bemmg born again’—or, 
according to the rendering of the same word} in the 3d verse, 
having been begotten again. Here, at least, the writer does go 
back of all human effort or volition. If the readers had ‘ pu- 
rified their hearts in the obedience of the truth unto brotherly 
love unfeigned,’ this was sufficient proof that they were alive 
unto God. But now he again reminds them that that life 
itself was of God’s own imparting. And, as they ‘were not 
redeemed with corruptible things,’ so neither had they been 
begotten again ‘of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible ’— 
‘not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of 
man, but of God,’ as the same emphatic opposition is expressed 
by John.t 

This incorruptible seed—this seed of GodS—is here com- 
monly identified with ‘¢ke word of God, mentioned in the 
next clause. Others, however, laying perhaps undue stress 
on the change of prepositions—‘ begotten again of incorrup- 
tible seed, 6y the word of God ’—understand by the former 
the Holy Spirit,|| or rather, the Holy Spirit, as the power of 
God, in union with, and working ¢hrough, the Word.** ‘Of 


¥ Prov..4°: 75 2 Cor. 13°: 13; Col. 7: 14: Comp: 2 Peter x 25-7. 

Tt ἀναγεγεννημένοι. tjohn 1 2 13. δ 1 John3:9. 

|| Steiger, De Wette. 

** Huther, Briickner, Wiesinger.—Zmopdé occurs nowhere else in the New Tes- 
tament. Here Aretius (in the commentary, sa¢io) and Bengel (sementis ; which 
he understands of the word of God as preached, and so distinguishes from the 
word itself as σπόρος, semen, seed) avail themselves of a classical sense, a sow- 
ing ; Brown employs another, froles, race. But neither is the common interpre- 
tation, σπορά--ε σπέρμα, entirely without classical warrant. (See Passow, Liddell 
and Scott.) 


86 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


His own will,’ says James, (1: 18,) ‘begat He us with the word 
of truth.’ 

In either case, what honor is put upon the Divine word! 
It is that through which God regenerates the soul, as well as 
that in the faith of which His children purify themselves unto 
brotherly love unfeigned. The latter process and effect, the 
writer plainly intimates, are rendered possible and certain 
only by the former. He that is born after the flesh knows 
nothing of this love. Every power and tendency of his being 
exclude it utterly. In regeneration, on the contrary, it is just 
as essentially involved. The incorruptible seed, in whatever 
heart it alights, is there the germ of a life—an eternity—of 
love. ‘For love is of God, and every one that loveth hath 
been begotten of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not, 
knoweth not God ; for God is love.* And where shall this 
natural love of the new creature find its nearest and dearest 
objects? Let the disciple whom Jesus loved again furnish 
the answer : ‘Every one that loveth Him that begat ’—-which 
surely includes all God's true children—‘loveth him also that 
is begotten of Him.’t 


What follows is mainly a formal exhibition of the contrast 
already asserted between the corruptible and the incorrup- 
tible, the fleshly and the divine. By his majestic utterance 
of the worthlessness of the one as compared with the other, 
the Apostle seeks to deepen the sense of gratitude and of 
responsibility in those, who, having borne the image of the 
earthly, were now called to bear, in some measure, even in 
this present life, the image of the heavenly. 

They had ‘ dcen begotten again, he says, ‘not of corruptible 
seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God which liveth 
and abideth for ever, or, as the verse is now generally read by 
critical editors,t through Goa’s living and abiding word. And 
then immediately, taking up the cry which Isaiah (40: 6-8) 
heard of old sounding forth from the secret place of thunder, 
he exclaims: ‘ For all flesh’—not merely the frail body, but all 
that comes of the fleshly birth; man, the whcle of man, man 


* y John, 4: 7, (γεγέννηται.) 1 1 John5:1. 
t On the authority of the oldest manuscripts, (Sin. A, B, C.) 


Lecture VIII—Chapter 1 : 22-25. 87 


in all countries, throughout all generations—‘ αὐ flesh is as* 
grass, and all the glory of man’—or, according to the readingt 
now universally adopted, αὐ zts glory, that is, all the glory of 
the flesh ; and by this we are to understand the noblest and 
fairest attainments and doings of the natural man at his best 
estate, in the most advanced stages of his civilization, and the 
highest development of all his powers, intellectual and moral ; 
‘all flesh is as grass, and all its glory as the flower of grass’— 
an illustration of human frailty common in Scripture,t and to 
the eastern mind peculiarly vivid. ‘ Withered ts the grass, and 
its flower is fallen off’§ We look at it, and it is gone; and 
what now can we say of it but that it ‘withered and disap- 
peared’? by far the most memorable thing in its history ; ‘ dzz,’ 
in the midst of this universal decay, ‘z¢he word of the Lord, in 
conspicuous, solitary grandeur, ‘abideth for ever. As aword 
of promise—the revelation of God’s eternal counsels—it thus 
abideth ; and neither the passions and prejudices of men, nor 
the gates of hell, shall prevail against it. ‘ Hath He said, and 
shall He not do it? or hath He spoken, and shall He not 
make it good?’|| But that is not all, nor is it, perhaps, what 
Peter chiefly meant. As the seed also of regeneration—as the 
quickening, purifying power in the human soul—the word of 
the Lord no less abideth, abideth for ever, and makes every 
true believer a partaker of its own immortality. ‘He that 
believeth in me,’ said the Lord, Himself the Living Word, 
‘though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liv- 
eth and believeth in me, shall never die.’** 


* Lachmann cancels ὡς, (A, C,) for which Sin. has doei. 

+ αὐτῆς, for ἀνθρώπου, is approved by Mill and adopted by Wells and all the 
» recent editors, on the authority of the oldest manuscripts, versions, and Fathers. 
Sin. has πᾶσα ἡ δόξα αὐτοῦ, afterward corrected into πᾶσα δόξα αὐτῆς. 

TERS LOM Dh ΤΟ mse 7 27 ΕΓ 12} ames) 7.2) LO, 1Ἰ- 

§ ἐξηράνϑη ὁ χόρτος, καὶ τὸ ἄνϑος αὐτοῦ (the αὐτοῦ is cancelled by Lachmann 
after Sin. A, Β) ἐξέπεσε. Alexander’s remark on the parallel clauses of Is. 40: 7 
is equally applicable here: ‘The present form usually given to the verbs con- 
veys the sense correctly as a general proposition, but not in its original shape asa 
description of what has actually happened, and may be expected to occur again.’ 
The above: is but an approach to this idiomatic use of the aorist. Wiclif comes 
yet closer, dried up. . . felldown ; and so the Italian of Martini: seccd.. . ne 
casco.” 

|| Numbers 23 : 19. ἘΞ John Τὰ : 25, 26. 


88 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


But what zs this ‘word of the Lord’? it might be asked, 
and where shall we look for it, to which are ascribed proper- 
ties and effects so glorious? The word I speak of, says Pe- 
ter, is not some high edict that has gone forth to distant 
worlds, or to the armies of heaven. It concerns this world 
of ungodly, dying men—your own business and bosoms. ‘It 
is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off It is not in 
heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to 
heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it ? 
Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, Who 
shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may 
hear it, and doit? But the word is very nigh unto thee, in 
thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it;’ ‘that 
is, subjoins Paul, ‘the word of faith, which we preach.’* And 
it is not improbable, that the Apostle of the circumcision here 
intended to indorse that very claim, when he adds: ‘ Mow,} 
this ἐς the word which in the Gospel was preached unto you’ t— 
which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand§ By 
whatever various methods the word of the Lord has at sun- 
dry times been delivered unto men from the beginning, the 
sum of these successive revelations was conveyed to you by 
Christ’s evangelists, when they came proclaiming the glad 
tidings of salvation through Jesus of Nazareth, in whose per- 
son and work are concentrated all testimonies of Apostles 
and Prophets—the manifold messages of God’s truth and 
grace. 


1. Dear readers, the same word of the Lord—the same 
glorious Gospel—is now preached to you. And it is this day 
as young, and fresh, and strong, and imperishable, as it ever 
was. It ‘abideth for ever.’ And the flesh is still as frail, and* 
all the glory of the flesh still as fleeting, as of old. The 
voice from heaven which Isaiah heard, and whose solemn wit- 
ness was reaffirmed by Peter seven hundred years after, still 
soundeth, and human history is but the echo of its cry: ‘ All 
flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of 
the field: the grass withereth, the flower fadeth.’ There is 
no spot on this round earth, where we can escape the admo- 


- * Deut. 30: 11-14; Rom. Io: 8. t dé. 
t τό εὐαγγελισϑέν. δι Corners rake 


Lecture VIII—Chapter τ: 22-25. 89 


nition, and the rebuke to our levity and pride. It startles the 
wayfarer in the bright Savannas of the south, and amid the 
sands of the desert, and the icy desolation of the pole. It 
whispers from the green mounds of western forests, and is 
repeated by the billows of ocean as they roll above the 
multitudes that have gone down to slumber in the silent 
depths. With thrilling emphasis it speaks from the ruins of 
Memphis and of Thebes, of Nineveh and Babylon, of Petra 
and Tyre, of Athens and Rome; but with an accent more 
piercing, and tender, and subduing, than all of these, it shakes 
our hearts, and fills our homes with tears, when our own loved" 
ones die. As husband, or wife, or child, father or mother, 
sister or brother, sinks from our embrace into the weakness 
and dishonor and separation of the tomb, we are roused once 
more from our apathy by a new sense of the old truth, and 
we put on sackcloth, and bow down together, as in the pre- 
sence of God. 

And is there, then, no hope for man? I answer, there is 
none, save only what is provided by that word of the Lord, 
which in the Gospel is preached unto you. ‘They,’ says Cal- 
vin, ‘who wander beyond these bounds of revelation—the 
Law, the Prophets, the Gospel—shall for the word of the 
Lord gain nothing but impostures of Satan and their own 
frenzies.* Look up, then, weeping mourners, and through 
your tears behold this great, this only true and inextinguisha- 
ble light in the darkness. Behold here, amid the sunken 
rocks, and shifting quicksands, and unresting waters of time, 
the beacon of God’s own rearing—the eternal Pharos of the 
world—lifting its head, bright, steadfast, and unmovable, over 
the perilous waste. Here, at last, is something sure for us— 
something, in the midst of all the uncertainties and treache- 
ries of this world; on which we may implicitly and safely 
rely. Lovers and friends may be removed, or may stand 
aloof, from us, and kings and nations may perish. But ‘the 
word of the Lord abideth for ever.’ ‘Heaven and earth shall 
pass away, but that word shall not pass away.’f Never yet 
has it been known to fail any poor soul, that leaned its full 


* ‘Lex, Prophet, Evangelium. Extra hos revelationis fines qui vagantur, 
pro verbo Domini non nisi Satanz imposturas et sua deliria apprehendent.’ 
+ Matt. 24 : 35. 


90 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


weight on it. To this word, then, commit yourselves with all 
confidence, ye scattered sojourners. Let it be your strength 
and your stay—your present solace, and your everlasting 
song ; while all things else, the world and the fashion of it, 
your despisers and your sorrows alike, are passing quickly 
away. 


2. But remember, secondly, that even this mighty word has 
power to bless and save, only as it is believed and obeyed. 
Alas ! how is this simple truth wilfully forgotten by multitudes, 
who may yet be said to be exemplary in their attendance on 
public ordinances! It remains true nevertheless, that the 
only legitimate ends of all preaching and hearing of the Gos- 
pel are, that sinners may be begotten again of the incorrupti- 
ble seed, and that Christ’s disciples may be sanctified through 
the truth. Great was the joy of Paul, when he could look 
round ‘on the members of a church, and say: ‘In Christ 
Jesus I have begotten you through the Gospel.’ And that joy 
was doubled when he heard, like John, of his ‘children walk- ᾿ 
ing in truth.* 


3. Let me, finally, ask those of you who profess faith in the 
‘Gospel, whether your obedience of the truth is such as purifies 
your souls from all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit ; 
whether, in particular, it has tended in any measure to a bro- 
therly love unfeigned. If there is no intensity in your love, 
is it at least strong enough to keep you from slighting and 
insulting, envying and backbiting, ‘ wronging and defrauding, 
and that your brethren’?} The test, I fear, is one which, if 
faithfully applied, would instantly detect and expose, to the 
consciences. even of the self-deceivers, the utter hollowness 
and vanity of a vast amount of what passes for a Christian 
profession. Says the good Archbishop Leighton: ‘ Men are 
subject to much hypocrisy this way, and deceive themselves ; 
if they find themselves diligent in religious exercises, they 
scarcely once ask their hearts how they stand affected this 
way, namely, in love to their brethren. They can come con- 
stantly to the church, and pray, it may be, at home, too, and 
yet cannot find in their hearts to forgive an injury.—The 
Lord deliver us all from so great a wickedness, so fatal a 
delusion ! 

* Tt Cor. 4:15; 3 John 4. t+ 1 Cor.6: 8. 


LECTURE IX, 


t PEFLER 2: 152. 


‘WHEREFORE laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and 
envies, and all evil speakings, as new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the 
word, that ye may grow thereby: if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gra- 
cious.’ 


THE various exhortations contained in the previous chapter 
from the 13th verse—to hope, holiness, fear, and brotherly 
love—are here followed by a general requisition that believers 
grow ; grow in these and all other graces and manifestations 
of the Divine life ; ‘grow, according to the now generally 
received réading of the verse, ‘ wz¢o salvation.* Let us, then, 
speak, I., of Christian growth ; II., of the means whereby this 
is promoted ; III., of what is required in order to the effective 
use of the means ; and IV., of the motives to such a use, as 
these several points are presented in the words before us. 


I. First, Christians are to ‘ gvow’—‘ grow unto salvation.’ 

This implies present immaturity—that they have not yet 
reached ‘ the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.’ 
Their hope is ofttimes indistinct and tremulous, even when it 
is not averted from its appropriate object. Their holiness is 
stained by innumerable defilements of the flesh and the spirit. 
Their fear dissolves into a carnal security or a worldly dissi- 
pation. Nor does ‘brotherly love continue. But, if they 
are Christians indeed, and not in name merely, all these 
elements of the new creature exist at least in the germ in 


* εἰς σωτηρίαν, (Sin. A, B, C. Many cursive manuscripts, ancient versions, and 
Fathers. ) 
*  f Eph. 4:13 t Heb. 13:1. 


92 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


every one of them. The light has shined out of darkness, 
and not one ray is wanting. It may have to. struggle still 
with the mists of morning, and its path may be through 
clouds and storms. But that path is ever upward and on- 
ward ‘unto the perfect day.”* Or, keeping to the figure of 
the text, we may say of every new-born babe in God's house- 
hold, that it is born aliving child, complete in all the faculties 
that shall adorn the glorified saint; and the proof that it 
lives is, that it grows. : 

The growth, it is true, may be slow and, for a time, even 
_ imperceptible. Obstructed by the still remaining constitu- 
tional taint of the old nature, it may be hindered also by un- 
favorable circumstances, and interrupted by the diseases in- 
cident to childhood, or through neglect of the appropriate 
means of growth. But the tendency is there, and that ten- 
dency is to be seconded and fostered by the careful appliances 
of a Christian education. It must likewise be understood 
that, so long as the believer is in this world, his childhood 
lasts, and so long, therefore, lasts his education. To ‘ grow 
in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ ’t—this should be his life-long aim and endeavor. It 
was ‘Paul the aged’—‘ ready to be offered ’—who from his 
prison in Rome wrote those words of humility and of zeal un- 
quenched: ‘Brethren, I count not myself to have appre- 
hended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things 
which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which 
are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high 
calling of God in Christ Jesus.’{ It is the same goal to which 
Peter here points his brethren: ‘that ye may grow unto sal- 
vation. 

There is, indeed, a salvation to which believers now attain 
—consisting in freedom from condemnation, deliverance from 
the reigning power of sin,.the earnest of the Spirit, and the 
hope of glory. But the eternal glory thus hoped for is itself, 
in the highest sense of the word, salvation ; and unto it, or 
into it, believers are to grow. Ass it is the object and end of 


* 2 Cor. 4:63 Prov. 4: 18. qf 2ubeter ieee: 
1 Philem. 9; 2 Tim. 4: 6; Phil. 3 : 13, 14. 


~ 


Lecture I1X.—Chapter 2 : 1-3. 93 


ali their present efforts of self-denial and self-purification, so 
every increase of holiness is a step in advance toward that 
spiritual perfection in which it mainly consists. 


II. Now, in the second place, the particular means here 
specified, by which this growth is to.be promoted, is ‘ ze szz- 
cere milk of the word, | 

The original phrase* is, in form at least, somewhat different, 
and perhaps we should come nearer, not merely the form, but 
the sense also, if we said, the rational, guileless milk. ‘There 
is no doubt, however, that the word is what is meant; the 
word which, according to the definition that had just been 
given, is preached to men in the Gospel; that living and 
abiding word of God, through which the soul is begotten 
again. Here we are. taught that the same word, which at 
first is the incorruptible seed—the principle, or the instru- 
ment, of regeneration—continues ever after to be the natural, 
necessary food of the new life; that by which, zzt the con- 
stant use of which, God’s children grow. 

In, two other places{ milk is distinguished from meat— 
strong meat ; and then it stands for the elementary doctrine 
of the Gospel, or for the simpler forms of doctrinal statement 
and illustration. In the present instance, that distinction is 
not thought of. It is not some Christians, as compared with 
others, but all Christians while in this world, as compared 
with what they themselves ‘ shall be’§ in the world to come, 
that are addressed as ‘new-born babes.’ And, in harmony 
with that figure, the word is called milk, as being the nourish- 
ment suitable to their infancy. This nourishment may be 
variously prepared and administered, as in the written record, 
or through the ministries and ordinances of the Church. 
But in all cases that which sustains and strengthens is, not 
the external medium through which it is conveyed, but the 
‘word’ itself ‘that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.’|| 
This alone is the food of faith, and by it believers grow, nor 
do they ever outgrow their need of it. 

The Apostle commends it to them as ¢he rational or reason- 

* τὸ λογικὸν ἄδολον γάλα. ἱ ἐν αὐτῷ. 13 Com 6 AOS ΠΟ» 5 : Π2-.Χἅ- 

§ 1 John 3:2. | Matt. 4 : 4. 


94 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


able milk.* The expression he uses occurs once again in the 
New Testament, where Paul, exhorting the Romans (12: 1) 
to a holy self-consecration, calls it their ‘ reasonable service ’"— 
the service, that is, of the reason—soul—spirit—in opposition 
to the material rites and fleshly sacrifices of the law. So 
here ‘ the reasonable milk’—(just as we often speak of mental 
food, intellectual food)—is the milk adapted by its very nature 
to the nobler, spiritual life of man, because containing in it- 
self all the elements required for the satisfaction and enlarge- 
ment of every power and aspiration of the regenerate soul. 
Of no other word—science—philosophy—can this be affirmed, 
than the Divine word, ‘the word which in the Gospel is 
preached unto you.’ 

And then, with reference probably to the “αὐ guile’ men- 
tioned in the Ist verse, Peter speaks of this ‘zvatzonal milk’ 
as being also ‘ gwz/eless’—‘ uncrafty, says Jeremy Taylor ; ‘it 
is full of reason, but it hath no tricks; it is rational, but not 
crafty.’ There is in it no deceptiveness—no lurking poison, 
under the semblance of milk.f Or this second epithet may 
be taken, as indeed it is by most, in the sense of pure, un- 
mixed, unadulterated ;~ and so it conveys a caution against all 
those human additions, by which in the primitive and every 
subsequent age false teachers have corrupted the truth as it 


* In resolving the adjective (λογικός) into the genitive of the material or sub- 
stance (of the word) our translators followed several old interpreters, including 
Beza, and one or two English versions. Many have done the same thing since. 
And in favor of it is the apparent suggestion of λογικόν by λόγου, (ch. 1 :'23,) and 
the prevailing objective sense of the noun in the New Testament, as word, speech, 
doctrine. The other explanation appeals to the ordinary import of the adjective 
itself, including Rom, 12 : 1, and the patristic usage, (for which see Steiger, and 
the citation in Bretschneider, from 7Zés¢. xii. Patr. p. 547: προσφέρουσι (the angels) 
κυρίῳ ὀσμὴν εὐωδίας λογικὴν καὶ ἀναΐμακτον προσφοράν.) The Syriac, it is worthy 
of note, combines the two methods: = long for the word, as for milk pure and 
spiritual, 

+ Augustine (Serm. 353) calls it zzzocens ; with which compare Shakespeare, 
Winter's Tale, iii. 2: 

‘The zznocent milk in its most innocent mouth.’ 

t Comp. 2 Cor. 4 : 2, δολοῦντες τὸν λόγον, falsifying, corrupting the word. The 
ambiguity of the Greek is well represented by the English version, (after the 
Geneva Bible, Pagninus, Beza,) if along with the present prevailing import of 
sincere, we recognize the older usage, and the supposed etymological force, (sie 
cera. ) 


Lecture IX.—Chapter 2 : 1-3. 95 


is in Jesus, or speculators have sought at least to recommend 
it to the popular taste. 


III. But, in order to the’ profitable use of even the pure 
milk of the word, there are certain conditions prerequisite ; 
and these we were to notice in the third place. 

1. There is, first, the necessity of spiritual fz. Address- 
ing. his brethren as xew-born babes, the Apostle assumes that 
in their case this life existed. Without it, as there can be no 
growth, so neither is there any desire after the means of 
growth. Whatever may be true as regards the duty of all 
men, it is only the soul that has been born again, and so 
made alive unto God, that can have any genzzwve relish for the 
things of God, or ‘increase with the increase of God. * And 
this is quite sufficient to explain how there may be a great 
deal of Bible-reading and Gospel-hearing, and very little de- 
light in, or profit from, either. What the Lord said of the 
body may be extended to the soul, ‘The life is more than 
meat ; and in the vast majority of instances the life itself is 
wanting. 

2. Not only life, however, is needed. If the soul is to en- 
joy the full benefit of the provisions of grace, it must also be 
careful of its spiritual health; avoiding all occasions of dis- | 
ease, and especially maintaining a constant guard against the 
evil tendencies of its own hereditary, constitutional taint, as J 
called it formerly. ‘Laying aside, says the Apostle, ‘a// mza- 
lice and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envyings,} and all evil- 
Speakings. 

He had been exhorting believers just a little before to mu- 
tual, brotherly love. That exhortation is now not a little 
strengthened, in passing, by an intimation, that the indul- 
gence of the opposite sentiments would be found altogether 
incompatible with the prosperous advance of their Christian 
life. Accordingly, the word translated ‘alice, which some- 
‘times ᾧ stands for badness, wickedness, depravity in general, is 
properly taken here to denote that depravity in its malignant 


+ Coll Ζ τ τὸ; + φθόνους---5 in Gal. 5 : 21. 
¢ Asin 1 Peter 2: 16, and Acts 8 : 22. 


96 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


aspect toward others, of which various particular expressions 
are immediately subjoined ; as ‘ gzz/e, with all its arts of de- 
ception and lying in wait ; ‘Lypocrisies,* the many masks and 
disguises of insincerity ; ‘ezvyzugs, grudging and repining at 
our neighbor’s good of whatever kind ; ‘ evzl-speakings, ἡ as 
railing, slander, detraction, insinuation, the eager or cowardly 
taking up and propagating, where we do not ourselves invent, 
injurious reports ‘against our neighbor’s reputation. 

All such malevolent feelings and habits are among ‘the 
works of the flesh’—apples of Sodom, which cannot flourish 
on the same heavenly vine with ‘the fruit of the Spirit’ ἢ 
The soul, while feeding on this garbage, can have no taste for 
‘the rational, guileless milk » even as the man, who comes to 
God’s altar with an unforgiving heart, finds no acceptance 
there for even his costliest gifts. The Apostle, therefore, re- 
quires, as an indispensable condition of Christian growth, 
that, in the exercise of a rigorous and habitual self-denial, 
these affections and lusts of the old man—all of them and in 
every form—be utterly dazd aside, or put off, like decayed or 
infected raiment. The expression is one that Paul often em- 
ploys in similar relations,§ and James once, in a passage still 
more kindred to our own: ‘ Wherefore, laying aside all filthi- 
ness and superfluity of malice, in meekness receive the im- 
planted word, which is able to save your souls.’|| 

3. When the soul has thus been purified from ‘the leaven 
of malice and wickedness,’** one unfailing sign of its healthy 
condition is a ‘ desive’—an earnest desire +{—for the nutriment 
of the Divine word. And may we not, then, regard this very 
longing of the ‘ zew-born babes’ as still another requisite to such 
a use of ‘the rational, sincere milk’ as will secure their spirit- 
ual growth? Certainly the absence of this natural appetite— 


* jroxpiceic—opposed to ἀνυπόκριτον of ch. 1 : 22. 

+ Sin. : πᾶσαν καταλαλιών ; afterward corrected into the plural. 

t Gal. 5: 190, 22. 

§ anodéuevot, (Rom. 13 : 12; Eph. 4: 22, 25; Col. 3:8; Heb. 12:1. 

|| So James 1 : 21 may be closely rendered—droVépevor. . . κακίας, ἐν πρᾳὕτητι 
δέξασϑε τόν ἔμφυτον κτλ. 

ἜΣ τ Cor: 8. 

tt ἐπιποϑήσατε. The intensive force of the verb and its cognates is everywhere 
else recognized in our common version. 


Lecture [X—Chapter 2 : 1-3. 97 


the feeling of satiety, weariness, indifference, to say not, of 
aversion—is a sure token of an unhealthy and pining soul. 

4. There is just one thing more to be noticed here, namely, 
that, if we would grow by means of the word, it is important 
that we use the word for that end: ‘earnestly desire the ra- 
tional, sincere milk, that by it ye may grow ;’ as if he had said: 
See that you aim at, and rest satisfied with, no inferior result. 
But this brings us to 


IV. Our last point—the mmo¢éves, by which the exhortation 
is enforced. For surely, . 

1. In this growth itself there is blessing enough to be its 
own motive and great reward. To know more and more of 
‘the love of Christ which passeth knowledge’—to receive 
into our ransomed nature more and more of ‘the fulness of 
God’—to hold on our heavenward way, waxing ‘stronger and 
stronger’ in the service of our Lord—while, like the face of 
the earth in the spring-time, we are ‘changed’ daily ‘into 
the same image’*—-what other interest can there be so dear 
as this to the Christian heart? There are other considera- 
tions, however, suggested by the text. Observe, 

2. The introductory word, Wherefore—iiterally, ‘ Laying 
aside, therefore, + etc—referring back to the illustrious attri- 
butes of the word, as these had been set forth at the close of 
the first chapter. It had there been magnified as the word 
of the Lord—as the incorruptible seed—as the living, abiding, 
everlasting word; and the churches had been assured that 
the word, of which such things could be said, was none other 
than that which in the Gospel had been preached unto them. 
Seeing, then, says Peter, this precious word decays not— 
grows not old nor obsolete, and can as little be exhausted, as 
it can be superseded by the word of man or of angel, what 
remains but that ye ‘follow on to know’ it——‘ give yourselves 
wholly’ to it—and drink deep, drink daily, drink for ever, of 
the Divine fountains—these ‘ breasts of consolations’?+ This 
might the rather be expected of them, as, 





* Eph. 3: 19; Job 17:9; 2 Cor. 3: 8. t οὖν. 
ἘΠ ΟΞΕΔ 6.72. elms 4: 15.» 1S. 60. ΕΠ: 


198 Lectures on the Farst Epistle of Peter. 


3. In the third place, they had already experienced the re- 
generating power of the word: ‘as new-born* babes’ This is 
not so much a comparison, as a reason: ‘As being new-born 
babes—ivasmuch as ye are new-born babes—earnestly desire 
the rational, sincere milk, that by it ye may grow unto salva- 
tion. I spoke before of the new birth as a needful prelimi- 
nary to a hearty love of, or a continuous profiting by, the 
word. But it is not less evidently a strong motive to perse- 
verance in the same duties. That which, in the Spirit’s 
hand, is able to quicken the dead in sin, may well be relied 
on as able also to nourish the life which it imparts, and 
‘make wise unto salvation’ the children of grace. If, more- 
over, they remember still that they are but children, what 
more natural than that they should be ambitious to grow? 

4. And finally, as they had been made subjects of the Gospel’s 
regenerating power, so they had likewise tested the sweetness 
and blessedness of its revelations: ‘ /f so be’—or, if indeed,t as 
you profess, and as I fully believe—‘ ye have tasted that the 
Lord is gracious, good, kind; so the word is almost always 
translated elsewhere, and never as here.§ Indeed, the pas- 
sage is a direct, though not a formal, quotation || from Psalm 
34: 8: ‘Oh! taste and see that the Lord’—Jéhovah—‘is 
good. Now this, says Peter, who deems it not robbery to 
apply to Jesus what David had spoken of the most high God 
—this you did,** when you believed in the Lord Christ whom 
the preached word made known to you, and the precious ex- 
perience has been often renewed in your subsequent fellow- 
ship with Him through that same word. What made the 
word, when it was found, and you did eat it, the joy and re- 
joicing of your hearts, was just this, that therein ‘the kind- 


* dptiyévvnta—nowhere else in the New Testament. 

ἡ ΣΕΕ πὶ; 2 τ: 

ft εἴπερ (Lachmann reads εἰ, after Sin. A, B,)—not sizce, because, etc., as it is 
often rendered. See Lect. on Thess. p. 433. 

§ The other places where χρηστὸς occurs are Matt. 11 : 30; Luke 5 : 39; 6:35; 
1 Cor. 15 : 33; Eph. 4:32. Comp. also the common version of the kindred 
verb at 1 Cor. 13 : 4, and of the noun at 2 Cor.6:6; Eph. 2:7; Col. 3:12; 
Titus 3 : 4, etc. 

|| Through the Septuagint. 

ἘΝ The aorist—éyevoacve. 


’ Lecture 1X —Chapter 2 : 1-3. 99 


ness and love of God our Saviour toward man’ * was revealed 
to your souls. You ‘tasted,’ and you are well aware that you 
did no more than taste, ‘of the heavenly gift’—of that which 
shall be the eternal satisfaction and joy of all the redeemed. 
With what confidence, then, in your ready compliance may I 
not say: Open your mouths wide, and the good Lord will fill 
them. Enlarge to the uttermost both your capacities and 
your desires, and you will still find this cup of blessing—this 
river of God—as full as at the first. 


Such, brethren, is the duty of Christians to grow, to grow 
unto salvation—such the means and the conditions of growth 
—such the motives to a careful observance of the conditions, 
and an earnest use of the means, for that end. 

And now ‘examine yourselves . . . prove your own selves.’ 
Are you living in the constant sense of the obligation, and 
are you habitually striving, in the way which Christ’s Apostle 
here prescribes, to fulfil it? I doubt not that most of you are 
accustomed to attend, with a greater or less degree of regu- 
larity, where, in the public reading and preaching of the word, 
‘the rational, sincere milk, as Peter calls it, is dispensed to 
‘the household of faith’$ But the question is: With what 
feelings—for what purpose—do you so attend ? 

Do you ‘ earnestly desire’ the word—the word of the Lord ? 
Have you ever felt—do you now feel—in any measure what- 
ever, what the Psalmist expressed, when he cried out: ‘Oh! 
how love I Thylaw! It is my meditation all the day... My 
soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto Thy judgments 
at all times’?|| If so, then several other things are certain. 
Your Bibles do not lie in your houses, the week through, 
sealed books to you and your children. You are not satisfied 
in that respect with having half a dozen copies somewhere 
around, or one very fine copy exhibited on your parlor table. 
And when the Sabbath comes, it is not at all a question with 
you, Shall I go to the house of God this morning? You do 


* Jer. 15 : τὸν Titus 3 : 4. 
+ Heb: 6 24,5; Ps. 1 : 10; 1 Cor. 10316; Ps. 65 : 9. 
fee ΘΕ aes § Gal. 6: Io. || Ps. 119 : 20, 97. 


100 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


not then find that, on Saturday night, you were so busy with 
the world, that you have no strength nor heart left for the 
sanctuary and the Gospel. Quite as little do you then think 
either of depriving yourselves of ‘that meat which endureth 
unto everlasting life,’ because, forsooth, whether accidentally 
or by your own invitation, you have friends with you, for whom 
you must prepare ‘the meat which perisheth,”* or of riding off 
on your excursions to tempt others to a like profanation of 
holy time. No, brethren; they of whom such things are true, 
while they are flaunting in the robe of Christian profession 
—let them at least, if they repent not, be disowned by the 
Christian Church. They may once ‘have tasted the good - 
word of God, and the powers of the world to come. But, 
alas ! they have ‘ fallen away. . . seeing they crucify to them- 
selves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame.’ 
They take rank with ‘them who draw back unto perdition,’ 
not with ‘them that believe to the saving of the soul.+ All 
too plainly they have no love of, no desire for, the children’s 
bread. 

And I cannot but think also, that, where this desire is such ἢ 
as our text describes—the longing of new-born babes—you 
will not grudge a little pains so to order the affairs of your 
shops and households, as to leave you at liberty to avail your- 
selves likewise of such week-day opportunities as the Church 
provides for your greater safety and refreshment amidst life’s 
temptations, toils, and cares. 

But I asked not only with what feelings, but for what pur- 
pose, you come to church. The one question, however, is 
really involved in the other. If you sincerely and heartily 
love the word, it is because of the spiritual blessings which it 
has already conveyed to you, and because you have thus 
learned that therein is the life and strength of your souls. 
Not, therefore, to see and to be seen—not ‘from a regard to 
social custom and public decency—not to relieve in some 
measure the solitariness and dulness of the Sabbath—not to 
be entertained by fine singing or fine preaching—not by your 
attendance to compliment the preacher, or express your de- 


* John 6 : 27. t Heb. 6: 5, 6; 10: 39. 


Lecture IX —Chapter 2 : 1-3. IOI 


nominational preference, any more than you would think by 
your absence to show your poor spite at something or some- 
body—for none of these ends do the children .of God repair 
to their Father’s house ; but that, eating and drinking at His 
table, within the sound of His voice, and beneath the blessing 
of His smile, they may grow thereby—grow in faith, in love, 
in holiness, in hope—grow thus unto salvation, into their pre- 
destined meetness for the service and the feast, of eternity. 


LECTURE X. 


1 PETER 2: 4-6. 


_ £To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chos- 
en of God, and precious, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, 
an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus 
Christ. Wherefore also it is contained in the Scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a 
chief corner-stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on Him shall not be 
confounded.’ 


THESE verses are closely connected, not only in grammati- 
cal construction but also in sense, with what goes before. 
The writer had been speaking of the duty of believers to 
grow unto salvation, as the result of a loving, earnest, con- 
stant use of the same word of God, through which they are re- 
generated, and brought to know the kindness of the Lord. 
It is still essentially the same duty that is here exhibited 
under a different figure, and more in the light of a privilege. 

The figure is taken from the temple of Jerusalem—that ob- 
ject, of all others on earth, the dearest and most sacred to 
the Jewish heart. It is true that at this time the glory had 
departed from it, and all its solemn magnificence οἵ. rite and 
structure was even now ready to vanish away. But the 
Apostles of Christ had also come to know, that the worship of 
Israel’s God was not therefore to cease from among men, 
and that the great catastrophe so near at hand would turn 
out rather ‘unto the furtherance of the Gospel.* At this 
very moment the foundations had been laid of another temple, 
and its walls were going up without hands, or the sound of 
hammer or axe or any tool of iron; a building against which 
no weapon should prosper, nor the gates of hell prevail, and 


* Phil. 1: 12. 


Lecture X—Chapter 2 : 4-6. 103 


whose imperishable, holy shrine is God’s chosen rest for 
ever.* In the language of Paul, when illustrating the same 
high theme by the analogy of marriage: ‘This is a great 
mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the Church.’ 

Observe, then, what is here said of Christ, and of Christians, 
and of the relations between these two parties. 


I. First, of Christ ; who, though not named, is undoubtedly 
referred to in the fourth verse. ‘ 70 whom coming’—that is, 
to ‘the Lord’ of the verse preceding. And it is well for you 
again to note how easily, without argument or explanation of 
any kind, the Apostle applies to the man Christ Jesus what 
the Psalmist sang of Jehovah, God of Israel. For that Peter 
was really thinking of the Psalm, (34: 8,) and that the coinci- 
dence of phrase in the third verse was not undesigned, is 
only a fair inference from that large and intimate acquaint- 
ance with the Old Testament Scriptures, which appears in all 
his discourses and Epistles,.and of which the present context 
supplies still other illustrations. 

In speaking of the Saviour as ‘a ving stone, or the Living 
Stone—‘ to whom coming, the Living Stone’t—the writer em- 
ploys no original figure of his own, but a perfectly well-known 
metaphorical designation of the Messiah. The Jewish Coun- 
cil had no difficulty in apprehending the meaning and force 
of our Apostle’s interpretation of Ps. 118 : 22, when in his ad- 
dress on the day after Pentecost he named the hated Naza- 
rene, and exclaimed: ‘This is the stone which was set at 
naught of you builders, which is become the head of the 
corner.’ To the same passage, more fully quoted in v. 7, the 
allusion is scarcely less obvious in the verses before us ; 
which, moreover, in that exuberance of proof from the Old 
Testament, or of reference to it, which is so often exemplified 
in the New, and remarkably so in the first ten verses of this 
chapter, expressly cite in confirmation,§ though with a few 


* Dan. 2: 34; 1 Kings 6:7; 15.:54.:17.; Matt. 16:18; Ps. 132 :-13, 14. 

t Eph. 5 : 32. t πρὸς ὃν προσερχόμενοι, λίϑον ζῶντα. 

§ Instead of διὸ καὶ, Wherefore also, 411 the recent editors read διότι, because, 
{after Sin. and the uncials generally.) So Alford, though in the commentary he 
retains, and insists on, the καὶ. 


104 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


unessential variations from both the original Hebrew and the 
Septuagint Greek, what ‘is contained in another Scripture’* 
—Is. 28 : 16. 


If now we combine these testimonies, the apostolic and the 
prophetic, we learn the following important lessons respecting 
our Lord’s place and relations in the spiritual building : 

1. In Himself, He is the ‘ving stone’ The epithet is a 
favorite one with the Apostle, who in the first chapter speaks 
also of our ‘living hope,’ and of God’s ‘living word.’ Its use 
in the present connection at once lifts the subject beyond all 
earthly comparison. It was probably Peter who, on one oc- 
casion, admiringly drew the Master’s regard to the stones of 
the Jewish temple. His own eye was now fixed on a far 
greater wonder—a ‘ Living Stone,’ that could not have come 
from any of the dull, dark mines of this lower world. This 
was none other than the eternal Son of.God, the Prince of 
life, having life in Himself, who, as the Creator and Upholder 
of all worlds, diffuses and sustains life throughout the uni- 
verse, and who, as Mediator and Redeemer, laid down His 
life that He might take it again—rising from the dead, death’s 
Conqueror, to die no more, and becoming the Resurrection 
and the Life to all believers. 

2. In the second place, this Living Stone is the ‘chief corner- 
stone’ of the Church ; not, as some have supposed, the highest 
or top corner-stone,§ but rather the corner foundation ;|| that 
by which the whole building is mainly supported and united. 
Strictly speaking, He is the only foundation, and in that high- 
est sense, as Paul most earnestly affirms, none other can be 


* Tischendorf and Alford cancel τῇ before γραφῇ, (after Sin, A, B.) Lachmann 
alone edits περιέχει ἡ γραφή, (C)—a reading probably formed on the Vulgate, 
(continet Scriptura,) or else a mere escape from the difficulty of the common 
text. Of that text the only explanations worth mentioning are that which sup- 
plies some such subject as 7 περιοχή, τόπος τις, etc., and (which I prefer) that 
which makes περιέχει here a neutral, impersonal verb, as the simple ἔχει is often 
used. A good parallel is furnished by Josephus, Avz/. xi. 4, 7. 

+ Bengel: ‘Amat Petrus epitheton vvus.’ 

¢ Mark 13:1. 

§ So Wiclif understood the Vulgate swmmum angularem ; and so Sharpe. 

1 See the Septuagint, Is. 28 : 16, ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ ἐμβάλλω εἰς τὰ ϑεμέλια Σιὼν λίϑον.... 
ἀκρογωνιᾶιον... εἰς τά ϑεμέλια αὐτῆς. ῖ 


Lecture X.—Chapter 2 : 4-6. 105 


laid.* But in a secondary, ministerial sense, the same 
Paul, in a passage kindred to the present, describes the 
Church as ‘built upon the foundation of the Apostles and 
prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone ;’ 
and in the twelve foundations of the wall of the New Jerusa- 
lem John also beheld ‘the names of the twelve Apostles of 
the Lamb.’+ Of that number the writer of this Epistle was in 
many respects the most eminent, nor was he likely ever to 
forget the gracious significance of his own Christ-given name. 
It may even be that the remembrance of these things led 
him in his humility, while reproducing, it would appear, that 
Pauline description of the Christian temple, to drop alto- 
gether the reference to auxiliary foundations, and exhibit 
only the incommunicable glory of Him who, in a way equally 
peculiar and exclusive, is ‘the Apostle and High-Priest of 
our profession.’{ With no less cordiality and eager self- 
renunciation than Paul, Peter could say, ‘Not I, but Christ ;’ 
‘By the grace of God I am what I am;’ ‘ Christ is all, and in 
all.§ None but He was delivered for our offences and raised 
again for our justification. None but He has thus made an 
end of sins, and brought in everlasting righteousness. He 
alone hath abolished death, and received from the Father the 
Spirit without measure, and is now the Head over all things 
to the Church, able to save them to the uttermost that come 
unto God by Him.|] Who else on earth or in heaven can 
occupy the foundation-corner? Nay, dislodge Him but for 
an instant from His place of preéminence, and that instant 
the mighty fabric rushes down into hideous and irreparable 
ruin. 

3. But, in the third place, this ‘ Zzving Stone, though the 
‘ chief corner-stone, was ‘disallowed indeed of men, or by men, 
indced, rejectea**—tried and rejected. As if it were said: So 
_much must needs be confessed, nor do I any longer shrink 
from the shame of the cross. It zs true, the world ‘knew 


“iT Gor 3: Ll. fp ph. Ὁ τον ΠΟΥ ΖΕ tA. 

ἘΠ ΞΕΡΕΗΣ Ὁ 3: § Gal: 2’: 20; 1 Cor. 15 = 105, ΟὉ]..2.: 11. 

| Rom. 4:25; Dan.9:24; 2Tim. 1:10; John3:34; Eph.1:22; Heb. 7:25. 

** ὑπὸ ἀνϑρώπων μὲν ἀποδεδοκιμασμένον. Everywhere else, (seven times,) ex- 
cept twice in this Epistle, the English version renders ἀποδοκιμάζω, to reject. 


106 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


Him not’ *—saw not, through the dim crust of the humiliation, 
the Divine lustre of this Pearl of heaven—could only say, as 
the result of all its blind gazing and handling: ‘ He hath no 
form nor comeliness.’ And so He was despised and rejected 
of men, and His own received Him not, and the very build- 
ers lightly esteemed the Rock of their salvation, and the 
princes of this world in their ignorance crucified the Lord of 
glory.| Such was the dreadful issue of man’s judgment re- 
specting Jesus of Nazareth. 


4. And then the Apostle brings into startling contrast 
with that, as from his discourses you will find he was fond of 
doing,¢ the very different judgment and acting of God in re- 
gard to ‘Him whom man despiseth, Him whom the nation 
abhorreth.’§ ‘Ay men, indeed, rejected’—let that be granted 
—‘ but chosen of God; with God, in God’s sight, e/ect ;|| what 
an offset is this to His admitted unpopularity among the 
ungodly whom He came to save! God, the only wise God, 
who ‘seeth not as man seeth-—He hath chosen the crucified 
Nazarene. He chose Him in the counsel of eternity, and 
‘through the institutions of His grace and by the voice of 
prophets from the beginning He proclaimed His choice: 
“Behold my Servant, whom I uphold; mine Elect, in whom 
my soul delighteth.’** 

If we speak of the ground of this choice, it was no.doubt 
Immanuel’s own infinite excellencies, and perfect adaptation 
of person and character to the work given Him to do. But 
the point now to be observed is, that, whatever His qualifica- 
tions, He did not thrust Himself into the mediatorial office. 
He was chosen to it—chosen by Him who alone had the 
right to choose, and whose choice, therefore, alone could 
avail. Even the mocking rulers around the cross well under- 
stood, that ‘the Christ,’ come when He might, would be ‘the 
chosen of God.}} Jehovah had said to Him: ‘I have called 
Thee in righteousness, and will hold Thine hand, and will keep 


* y John 3: 1. ls 53 22,33 John τ 113 Deut. 32:95 5am ΟΣ 2.15: 
ἢ CR ΔΟΙΒΕΖ 5 23, 2; 3: 135-15; 41: 10; 5 : 30, 31 10.2130, 40: 
§ Is. 49: 7. || παρὰ δὲ Θεῷ ἐκλεκτὸν. 


FAT Sam. ΤΟ τ; 15: 42.211: tt ouke: 22:25. 


Lecture X—Chapter 2: 4-6. 107 


Thee, and give Thee for a covenant of the people, for a light 
of the Gentiles.* And so, throughout the ages of prepara- 
tion for setting the Living Stone in its place in the founda- 
tion-corner, God, in summoning, as it were, the attendance 
of all creatures, takes them to witness that the glory of the 
act He reserved for Himself: ‘Behold, 7 lay tn Zion a chief 
corner-stone. No hand but that which is Divine—not even 
the combined strength of angels—was equal to the task. 
This stone, we may say, was laid in the incarnation, when the 
lowly Virgin was overshadowed by the power of the Highest ; 
on Jordan’s banks, when the heavens were opened, and the 
Spirit of God descended, ‘and lo a voice from heaven, saying, 
This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased ;’ on the 
mount of the transfiguration, when the same voice was again 
heard, commanding obedience to the Son; amid the gloom 
of Calvary, when Jews and Gentiles, with their rulers, were 
gathered together, ‘to do whatsoever God’s hand and counsel 
determined before to be done ;’ and especially in the resur- 
rection from the dead by the glory of the Father, and exalta- 
tion to the Father’s throne, when, in the hearing of all heaven, 
‘ Jehovah said unto my Lord: Sit Thou at my right hand, until 
I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.’+ Blessed be God, it is 
securely laid, and ‘cannot be removed, but abideth for ever ;’ 
and for ever, as the redeemed look on Him who wears ‘many 
crowns, and once hung on the cross, they will cry one to an- 
other, in joyful adoration: ‘This is the Lord’s doing; it is 
marvellous in our eyes.’¢ 

5. When we are further told that the chief corner-stone is 
laid ‘72 Zion, we seem to be reminded of God’s covenants 
with Israel and with David ; that ‘salvation is of the Jews,’ and 
that ‘Jesus Christ our Lord was made of the seed of David 
according to the flesh ;’ that the great decease was accomplish- 
ed at Jerusalem, and the Gospel first preached there ; that the 
page of prophecy is bright with anticipations of a time, which 
surely is still to come, when ‘ the Lord of hosts shall reign in 


Se A2)- 0: 

7 Luke 1: 35; Matt. 3: 16, 17; 17:5; Acts 4:27, 28; Rom. 6:4; Rev. 
30 2G JESS Ὑ10 τ 1; 

Pi PS0525 2. 1'5 Rev, 10.112» Ps, 115 +23. 


108.0" Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


-Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before His ancients glori- 
ously ;’ and, meanwhile, that the tabernacle pitched by David 
‘in the city of David, which is Zion,’ like the temple which 
succeeded it, was but the typical forerunner, and, so to speak, 
the scaffolding of the spiritual house, of which the text treats.* 

6. The divine proclamation, moreover, uttered by Isaiah, 
and quoted here in our sixth verse, pronounces the Living, 

Elect Stone to be a ‘ precious’ corner-stone ; and it deserves 
to be noticed that this feature also of the testimony had al- 
ready in the fourth verse been adopted by the writer as the 
expression of his own faith and love, just as in the previous 
chapter he had spoken with rapture of Christ’s ‘precious 
blood” But now all of Christ, His person and His work, is 
declared to be ‘frecious ;’ precious to God, as being the Son 
of His love, the brightness of His glory, the Man that is His 
Fellow, in whom His name is, the Man of His right hand 
whom He made strong for Himself, the Man after His own 
heart, the true David, which shall fulfil all His will ; precious 
also to.angels, they all worship Him; and precious, oh! how 
precious, to sin-burdened souls, to weeping sufferers, to dying 
saints, to saints in glory ! f 

7. For, in the last place, it is in full view of the myriad 
necessities and temptations, weaknesses and sorrows, of our 
ruined race, that the truth of God has vouchsafed us this sol- 
emn pledge: ‘And he that believeth on Him shall not be con- 
founded ;’ or as, retaining still the metaphor of the verse, we 
might render this clause, avd he that believeth on tt—rests, 
that is, his faith and hope on the chief corner-stonet—shal/ 

771 710 wise be ashamed ;§ ashamed, it is of course meant, of this 
his confidence. His house, as the gracious Lord Himself 
assured us, is ‘founded upon a rock,’|| and no storms from 

* John 4: 22; Rom.1 : 3; Luke 9 : 32; 24: 47; Is. 24: 23; 2 Sam. 6 : 12,17; 

2 Chron. 5 : 2. 

+ Col. τ 13, (margin;) Heb..1:3; Zech. 13:73 Ex 23 21} Ps) Son Τὴν 

Acts 13:22; Heb.1:6. Seep. 115, note 1. 

1 So ἐπ’ αὐτῷ (Sin. ἐπ’ αὐτόν) has been understood by many, from the Syriac, 
down to De Wette. 

ὃ ob μὴ καταισχυνϑῇ. The common version gives this verb as above in chap. 

3: 16, and generally elsewhere ; see especially Rom. 9 : 33; 10 : 11—where the 
5 


ame words are cited again and again by Paul. 
|| Matt. 7 : 25. 


Lecture X—Chapter 2 : 4-6. 109 


earth or hell can shake it. To all accusations of Satan and 
threatenings of the law he replies, ‘It is Christ that died.’ In 
the hour of deepest spiritual depression he remembers the 
word, ‘My grace is sufficient for thee.’ When beset by out- 
ward perplexities of whatever sort, as when daily bread is fail- 
ing, and the cruse of oil running dry, he is still able to sing 
with the Psalmist: ‘The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not 
want. And at last he comes to the entrance of the dark val- 
ley, and he goes down into it fearing no evil, yea, rather, giv- 
ing ‘thanks to God, which giveth us the victory through our 
Lord Jesus Christ.* Nor in any one of these anticipations 
has any true believer in any single instance ever yet been, or 
ever shall be, disappointed. 


II. We are thus brought to our second topic of discourse, 
namely, what is here said of Christcans and their relations to 
the Living Stone and the temple of God. ‘ To whom coming 
... ge yourselves also, as living’—not lively; for it is the 
same word as in the preceding verse, and our English varia- 
tion is altogether unfortunatet—‘as living stones, ave builded a 
Spiritual house. t 

What a-scene of holy activities! and how amazing the re- 
sult! These stones but yesterday lay sunk in nature’s quarry, 
far down in ‘ the hole of the pit,’§ or scattered over the waste 
places of the wilderness, all alike obscure, shapeless, dead, dis- 
united, valueless. Behold them now, swayed by a stronger 
and more miraculous influence than that of the fabled Or- 
pheus, moving to their common centre of attraction, living 
stones—instinct with the very life of that Divine Magnet ; 
Christ living in them||—each several stone polished after the 
similitude of a palace,** and gleaming with inward and reflected 
light, while all, as they successively gather round the one 
Foundation, are by the Heavenly Architect ranged thereon in 
their appropriate places, and so builded into mutual codpera- 


* Rom. 3 2 34:3) 2 Cor: 12. 59.» Psi 23, 311) 45 τ Cor. 15.: 57. 

+ Compare p. 28. ; 

t καὶ αὐτοὶ ὡς λίϑοι ζῶντες οἱκοδομξισϑε (Sin. A®, C, ἐποικοδομεῖσϑε οἶκος 
πνευματικὸς, (Sin, πνεύματος.) . 

§ Is. 51:1. || Gal. 2 : 20. ** Ps. 144 : 12. 


110 Lectures on the Furst Epistle of Peter. 


tion and a holy unity—‘a Spiritual House’—quickened and 
bound together in all its parts by the one all-pervading Spirit 
of Christ—a Living Temple, wherein God dwells, and which 
for ever shall resound His praise. ‘Jesus Christ,’ says Paul in 
that passage to which I have once before referred, (Eph. 
2 : 20—22,) ‘ being the chief corner-stone; in whom all the build- 
ing fitly framed together groweth unto a holy temple in the 
Lord: in whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of 
God through the Spirit.’ 

Let me here ask you to note, in passing, that the apostolic 
representation before us is not more vividly graphic as a de- 
scription, than it is doctrinally instructive in regard to the 
respective shares of God and man in the work of the Church’s 
edification. The coming to the Lord—or, as the phrase* im- 
plies, coming close up to Him—of v. 4 is plainly equivalent 
to the believing on Him of v. 6, and both expressions import 
the voluntary act or acting of an awakened, living soul. But, 
as the natural condition of every soul is that of death in sin, 
and faith is the gift of God, no man coming to Christ except 
the Father draw him, these ‘//ving stones’ must be under- 
stood to have undergone a previous operation of divine grace. 
Nor does that alone suffice. Even then they are not left to 
_ themselves. But, ever after their first coming, the same sov- 
ereign wisdom and love and power preside over their adjust- 
ment and growth. How beautifully again does all this accord 
with the philosophy of that sacred exhortation : ‘Work out 
your own salvation with fear and trembling: for it is God 
which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good plea- 
sure.’ So that in both senses of the word—as Himself erect- 
ing this Temple, and as owning it—it may properly be said to 
the Church, ‘Ye are God’s building.’f 

Many, indeed, prefer the construction of our English 


* πρὸς ὃν προσερχόμενοι. 

TBph. 2: 1, 8: John 6:44; Phil. 2: 12; 13; 1 ΟΣ: 2 10: 

} Of the older versions especially ; also Hammond, Carpzov, De Wette, Peile, 
Alford, Huther, who refers to the hortative character of the entire section. But 
the section includes vs. 7-10, and these are evidently descriptive. Nor is there 
more force in the special reference of some to the structure of vs. I, 2—an im- 
perative mood preceded by its participle. 


Lecture X.—Chapter 2: 4-6. ΤΙΣ 


margin, ‘Be ye ὀρ, or, as others,* ‘ δρμζλα yourselves ;’ but 
with no real advantage in either case. The writer, having 
just assumed as facts (vs. 2, 3) the regeneration and partial 
Christian experience of those addressed, may very well be 
supposed to be here reminding them doctrinally, that the 
growth, at which he had also urged them to aim, depended 
far less on any independent efforts of their own in the use of 
even the best external means, than on their continual resort 
through the means to the good Lord Himself—on their main- 
taining an abiding, living connection with the Divine founda- 
tion—or, according to that other figure in the Epistle to the 
Colossians, (2 : 19,) on their ‘holding the Head.’ For in the 
whole passage, as I conceive, he is thinking, not merely or 
mainly of the soul’s first contact with the Saviour in the hour 
of its regeneration, but rather of its ever closer approxima- 
tions, and growing intimacy of intercourse, in the exercises 
of an habitual faith.t ‘Zo whom coming ... ye are builded. 
In both these things there is, or ought to be, a process and 
steady advance. But the former of itself secures the latter, 
and is indispensable to it, the believing fellowship of the 
Church with the Lord being the sole condition of its edifica- 
tion. If the one is constant and uninterrupted, so is the 
other. And in. proportion to the loving earnestness of the 
one will be the rapidity and effectiveness of the other. The 
spiritual life is thus strengthened. The living stones, in 
union with the Chief Corner-Stone, ‘are changed into the 
same image from glory to glory, until the House of God, 
throughout its entire mass, and to its uttermost turret and 
pinnacle, glows and shines ‘in the beauties of holiness.’£ 


I must now very briefly call your attention, before closing, 
to the example we have in the fifth verse of what is called a 
mixture of metaphors. Of this offense against the rules of a 
scholastic rhetoric the inspired writers in general manifest 


* Luther, Wakefield, Steiger, etc. 

+ This meets Alford’s objection, that on our view ‘the present participle προσ- 
ἐρχόμενοι could hardly have been used, but it would surely have been προσελ- 
ϑόντες.᾽ 

$2 Cor.3: 18; Psalm 110: 3. 


112 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


no dread whatever, in their zeal to bring out the variety and 
fulness of Divine truth. Accordingly, as Christ Himself is 
set forth in Scripture as at once the Way, and the Door, and 
the Foundation, and the Temple, and the Altar, and the Sac- 
rifice, and the High-Priest,* so here Peter, while describing 
believers as being ‘builded’ on Christ ‘a spiritual house,’ 
deems no apology required for immediately adding in the 
same breath: ‘a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, 
acceptable to Godt through§ Fesus Christ. 

Here also you will notice the organic unity of all the faith- 
ful. Widely as they are dispersed in time and place, they do 
all constitute but one temple, and one ‘priesthood’ And that 
priesthood is ‘o/y’—not only separated by their office to a 
holy function, but through the ‘washing of regeneration, and 
renewing of the Holy Ghost,’ fitted for the due discharge of 
that function. Being priests, moreover, ‘it is of necessity that’ 
they ‘have somewhat also to offer.’ And, since all bloody 
sacrifices have been for ever superseded by ‘the offering of 
the body of Jesus Christ once for all, what remains for those 
also who in this way have already ‘received the atonement,’ 
but that they offer themselves—their spirits, and souls, and 
bodies, with all their faculties and opportunities—a thank- 
offering, living, spiritual sacrifices, ‘which is their reasonable 
service.’|| And how great a thing is it to be certified before- 
hand that these sacrifices of ours, such as they are—that 
aught we can bring to the altar, be it all we are, and all we 
have—will be ‘ acceptable to God’! Well was it for the Apos: 
tle to add, ‘through Fesus Christ’** That was needed to 


* ohn ΤΑ, τ: το τὸ; 1 Cor. 3: 115 ΤΟ; 2 : 21: ΠΕΡ 12,2310); ΒΡ Ὁ 
Heb. 8 : I, etc. 

+ Before ἱεράτευμα, (a word found in the New Testament only here and at v. 9,) 
Lachmann, Theile, Alford, insert εἰς, (Sin. A, B, C, Origen, etc.) 

¢{ Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford, cancel τῷ before Θεῷ (after Sin. A, B, C.— 
Sin, omits πνευματικάς before ϑυσίας.) 

§ Asinch. 1:21. See p. 79. 

ΕΙΣ πΞ τὴς : ἘΠΕ; ὅ.:2; Τὸ Ξ1Ο; ROMs 5: ΤΙ. ἘΣ Τ᾿: 

** The immediate connection of these words with 20 offer ᾽-ττ(αβ in Heb. 13: 15. 
Bede here even goes as far back as ‘ye are builded’)—is allowed by Calvin, Hor- 
neius, Brown, Huther, and preferred by Benson, Stolz, De Wette, Alford, and 
others. But the common construction is the more obvious, and that the priestly 


Lecture X—Chapter 2 : 4-6. 113 


justify our confidence, even while it deepens humility, and 
represses all glorying in the flesh. As our standing as priests 
in God’s temple, and our ability and right to offer up spiritual 
sacrifices there, come to us only through Jesus Christ, the 
same thing holds true no less of God’s acceptance both of our 
persons and our services ; even as the plate of pure gold, with 
its inscriptions ‘like the engravings of a signet, Holiness to 
the Lord, was to ‘be upon Aaron’s forehead, that Aaron 
might bear the iniquity of the holy things, which the children 
of Israel should hallow in all their holy gifts; and it was to 
be always upon his forehead, that they might be accepted 
before the Lord.* Majestic type of the more glorious reality! 
All unholy and defiled as we are, we behold our Great High- 
Priest ministering afar on our behalf in the heavenly sanc- 
tuary, and, taking courage from the sight, we too ‘come boldly 
unto the throne,’ saying: ‘By Him therefore let us offer the 
sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our 
lips, giving thanks to His name.’f 


Ask yourselves, dear readers, whether this be the spirit of 
your daily life. Only in the proportion that it is, is your life 
a Christian one, and you yourselves entitled to put on the 
garments of this holy priesthood. Or, reverting to the other 
figure of the text, let me solemnly caution you in the words 
of one whom I love to quote—I mean the blessed Leighton : 
‘Think it not enough that you know this Stone is laid, but 
see whether you are built on it by faith, The multitude of 
imaginary believers lie round about it, but they are never the 
better nor the surer for that, any more than stones that lie 
loose in heaps near unto a foundation, but are not joined 
unto it. There is no benefit to us by Christ, without union 
with Him.’ 


work of Christians is performed in and through Christ is already sufficiently im- 
plied in what precedes. 

* Ex, 28 : 36, 38. 

ΤΈΠΕΡ ST; 4.4165 12.210 


VACTOURE Vee 


1 PETER 2 τ 7-10. 


‘UNTO you therefore which believe He is precious: but unto them which be 
disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head 
of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them 
which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were ap- 
pointed. But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a 
peculiar people ; that ye should show forth the praises of Him who hath called 
you out of darkness into His marvellous light: which in time past were not a 
people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now 
have obtained mercy.’ 


In the preceding verse the writer, who had been speaking 
of the Lord Jesus as the living, divinely chosen, precious, 
chief corner-stone of the Church, confirms this apostolic 
judgment by quoting from prophecy God’s own testimony to 
the same effect—accompanied, as that testimony was, with a 
solemn guarantee of the infallible safety and triumph of all 
who through faith build on this sure foundation. 

Now, as a direct inference from this, comes the passage 
before us ; in which, by an appeal to actual experience, are 
contrasted the relations, and the very diverse results flowing 
from the relations, which Christ sustains respectively to be- 
lievers and unbelievers. 


‘Unto you therefore which believe He is precious. Both the 
form and the idea of the original would be more distinctly 
represented, if we should say, ‘ For you, then, is the precious- 
ness '’—the preciousness already twice referred to as inherent 
in the Saviour’s person and work ; ‘for you, then, according 
to that declaration of God, which I have just cited from Isaiah 


Lecture XI—Chapter 2 : 7-10. 115 


—‘for you, then, 15 the preciousness, who believe’ Ὁ The main 
emphasis, you perceive, is on the last word, the writer’s aim - 
being to bring into prominence this one great truth, that, as 
faith alone discerns the glory of the Saviour, so it is believers 
and believers only, that can claim a personal interest in all 
that, by God’s appointment, the Saviour is, and has. The 
excellence of the foundation is for—belongs to—the building 
that rests on it. And so whatever gives Christ value, so to 
speak, in the sight of God and angels—as the union in Him 
of the glories and virtues of the two natures, Divine and 
human ; His filial zeal, and perfect obedience, and efficacious 
atonement, and priestly intercession, and royal might and 
majesty—all, all redounds to the honor and blessing of ‘them 
that are Christ’s/f through faith in His name. ‘Faith it is 
that establishes free and open communication between the 
barrenness and desolations of earth and the kindly, inex- 
haustible influences of heaven. It is that secret, silent, ex- 
pectant contact of the perishing soul with the Saviour, which 
never yet failed to draw forth His healing power. 


Far otherwise is it with the unsympathizing, obdurate, self- 
satisfied crowd around. Mark what here follows: ‘ But anto 
them which be disobedient’—or, for such as disobey t—‘ the 
stone§ which the builders disallowed’—or rejected||—‘ the same 
hath become** the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, 
and a rock of offence. 


* ὑμῖν οὖν ἡ τιμὴ τοῖς πιστεύουσιν. The construction of ἣ τιμὴ as a predicate 
was adopted in our version, through the older Protestant English versions, from 
Erasmus, Luther, Calvin. Many who follow it conform more or less to our mar- 
ginal rendering, ‘He is az honor.’ But this also obscures the obvious reference 
of the Greek article to ἔντιμος. If, as some do, we translate the adjective here 
and v. 4 by honored, honorable, the present clause would stand thus: ‘ or you, 
then, is the honor, etc.’ And this, no doubt, would be rather more ‘agreeable to 
the current Greek usage. But, on the other hand, in Is. 28: 16, (the place re- 
ferred to,) Ps. 72:14, and often elsewhere, ἔντιμος is the Septuagint for sp. 
and its cognates. ἴω 

0 6Ὁ. τ. 55. t ἀπειθοῦσιν, (Sin., ἀπιστοῦσιν.) 

§ Lachmann and Alford read λίθος. || The same word as in v. 4. 

** ἐγενήϑη eis. See the English version at Ps. 118 : 22, and in the other New 
Testament citations of this text, Matt. 21:42; Mark 12:10; Luke 20:17; 
ACS AL ΔΕ 1. 


116 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


In the first chapter our Apostle had once and again charac- 
terized faith as obedience—obedience to the truth, and believers 
themselves had been spoken of as chzldren of obedience, (vs. 2, 
14, 22.) On the same principle unbelievers are now distin- 
guished as ‘such as disobey.” In other words, as the saving 
faith of the Gospel is not any cold assent of the understand- 
ing to the truth of a statement, whether historical or doc- 
trinal, but the cordial submission of the whole soul to the 
Divine authority and grace, as these are revealed in the face 
of Jesus Christ, so neither is unbelief any accidental, morally 
indifferent lack of such an intellectual assent, but the soul’s 
active resistance, with all its powers of thought and feeling 
to that same gracious authority. On this point men very 
commonly deceive themselves. They are apt to fancy that 
they cannot be held seriously responsible for their mere want 
of faith, inasmuch as this may be accounted for in one or 
other of several ways, without in any case at all impeaching 
their personal integrity. Either their minds are so consti- 
tuted—they are so cautious, or they are so acute—that they 
find it impossible for them to yield to evidence that readily 
satisfies more hasty or less sagacious spirits. Or, on the 
other hand, they are so humble, and have so little learning, 
that they cannot understand these things. Or else, taking 
you-on the ground of your own orthodoxy, they will even 
lament that they have not yet been favored with that super- 
natural illumination, without which, you say, a man ‘seeing 
shall see, and shall not perceive.’ * 

Such excuses, brethren, may be ever so dexterous and 
plausible ; but the word of God, that word which is to judge 
the secrets of men at the last day,f deals quite summarily 
and very sternly with them all. Need I tell you, whose are 
those solemn sayings: ‘ He that believeth not shall be damn- 
ed;’ ‘He that believeth not is condemned already, because 
he hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son 
of God’? Not only does the weight of all his other sins still 
abide upon him. There is now added to them the new, and 





* Matt. 13 : 14. t John 12 : 48; Rom. 2: 16. 
t Mark 16: 16; John 3: 18, 


Lecture XI—Chapter 2 : 7-10. Lig, 


heavier, and fatal guilt of unbelief in a revealed and offered 
Saviour. Such an offer from the hand of God cannot be 
innocently refused. It is the last and highest manifestation 
of the Divine love—a love so great, that, to secure the sin- 
ner’s acceptance of the unspeakable gift, it concentrates on 
the offer all the tenderness of invitation and entreaty, toge- 
ther with all the force of command, and the extreme sanc- 
tions of law. Can you wonder that, by Him who ‘knows 
what is in man,” the sinner’s refusal is charged to the invete- 
rate alienation of his heart from truth and holiness? There 
is involved in it, together with the darkest ingratitude of 
which any creature can be guilty, the very climax and con- 
summation of the original rebellion itself. 

And you are now to observe, that the retribution is an- 
swerable to the offense. ‘ for such as disobey, the stone which 
the builders—the priests and rulers of Israel, they who by 
their calling and profession were the most strongly bound to 
exercise a wise and righteous judgment—the stone which 
they ‘rejected, as not worthy of a place in the temple, ‘ ze 
sane’—so little do the ignorance, the malice, and the wrath 
of men avail against the counsels of heaven—‘ the same hath 
become the head of the corner’'—the chief foundation-stone. 
God thus returned into their own bosom the contempt which 
they had poured upon His Son, and ‘their folly was manifest 
unto all.’ But their case is here referred to for the sake of 
teaching us this lesson, that the sin of unbelief—disobedi- 
ence to the Gospel—puts men into the same class with those 
who ‘crucified the Lord of glory, ᾧ and that the bitter shame 
and horror of the latter at the unexpected result are the fit 
recompense also of the former. 

Nor is surprise, and disappointment, and confusion of face 
the whole of the penalty. The exaltation of Christ, while it 
for ever removes Him far beyond the reach of His enemies, 
as certainly involves them in ‘destruction and perdition.’§ 
Having described the one result by a figure taken from the 
118th Psalm, and already employed for the same purpose by 


* John 2 : 25. 12 Τίπι. 3:9. $1 Cor. 2: 8. §1 Tim. 6 :9. 


118 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


the Lord Himself,* the Apostle, with that deep, constant 
sense of the Saviour’s divinity that pervades the New Tes- 
tament, applies to the other result the very language in 
which it was announced to Isaiah, that Jehovah of hosts, 
the Sanctuary of refuge for the faithful in Israel, would yet 
‘be for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence’f to 
the ungodly mass of the nation. The same calamity, says 
Peter, is common to all who disobey. For them the choicest 
gifts of God are turned into curses. ‘Their table is made a 
snare, and a trap, and a stumbling-block, and a recompense 
unto them.’ The ‘savor of life unto life’ is found to be no 
less ‘a savor of death unto death.’ Whatever in Christ is 
most precious to faith—even His peace-speaking blood it- 
self—is but an aggravation of the doom of those who reject 
Him. They refuse to build on God’s foundation, and so, 
amidst all their wilful, vain activities, that foundation stands 
ever in the way, ‘a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence, 
and they ‘stumble, and fall, and are broken, and snared, and 
taken. ‘ Whosoever,’ said Jesus, ‘ shall fall on this stone 
shall be broken : but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind 
him to powder. Σ Such is the only possible issue of unbe- 
lief’s present dealing with the Saviour, and of the Saviour’s 
ultimate, judicial dealing with unbelief. 

For, miserable as this fate is, it is no worse, the Apostle 
intimates, than what might be expected to follow the sin. 
‘Who stumble at the word, he reiterates with mingled amaze- 
ment and sorrow, ‘ being disobedient ;’ or, according to an old 
and better, as it is now the commonly received, construction 
of the clause: ‘zwho stumble, disobeying the word.§ That is to 
say, the connection between disobedience to the word and 


* Matt. 21: 42; Luke 20: 17. ἢ 15: ὁ. - τῆς 

ἘΠ ΣΟΥ. 16:69, (Ps: 69 : 22 ;) 2 Cor. 2: 10; Is: 6:15; Matt: 21-3445 (leuke 
20: 18.) 

ὃ οὗ προσκόπτουσιν τῷ λόγῳ ἀπειθοῦντες. The noun is construed as above with 
the participle, (comp. ch. 3 : I and 4: 17,) by the Syriac, Beza, Benson, Bengel, 
De Wette, Huther, Wiesinger, Alford, and many others. Not a few begin a 
new sentence with this clause, and then treat οὗ either as a demonstrative, Zhese 
stumble, etc., or as a compound relative, with the copula supplied to the parti- 
ciple, They who stumble are disobedient, etc. I prefer the simpler reference of οὗ 


as a relative to ἀπειϑοῦσι of v. 7. ~ 


Lecture XI—Chapter 2 : 7-10. 119 


collision with the Rock, Christ, therein revealed, is one so 
direct and immediate, that the two things are simultaneous, 
and may be regarded as identical. Or, if we still choose to 
consider the stumbling as the penal consequence of the diso- 
bedience, it is then implied, that in no case is it possible to 
incur the guilt without suffering that very penalty. Leta 
man trifle with the Gospel, and on whatsoever pretext refuse 
to it the obedience of faith, and he thereby clashes himself in 
hostile, ruinous encounter against the Lord Christ Himself. 


But what is meant, when it is so sternly added, ‘ whereunto 
also they were appointed’? Of the very many explanations, 
possible and impossible, that have been given of this clause,* 
three only are of much account. The question being, Unto 
what were they also appointed—appointed by God ?}—the 
answer may be either, They were appointed to disobedience ᾿ξ 
or, They were appointed to stumbling as the consequence 
and punishment of disobedience ;§ or, The appointment in- 
cluded both the disobedience and the stumbling.|| It is in 
favor of this third view, that either of the others makes a 
more marked and formal distinction between the disobedience 
and the stumbling, than is perhaps warranted by the tone and 
structure of the entire passage. And as for the difficulty 
which it may be supposed to involve, as bringing even the 


! 

* Thus I. the 6 has been taken with the force of that which, and so attached, I. 
to ἀπειθοῦντες, believe not in that whereon they were, or are, set, or, into which they 
were instructed, or appointed, (so, with sundry other slight variations, Luther, 
Erasmus, Castalio, Vatablus, Tyndale, Cranmer, Newcome ;) or 2. to προσκύπ- 
τουσιν, stumble at the thing for which they were laid, (Thomson, The Mew Covenant 
Translated, Philadelphia, 1808.) II. As a simple relative, 6 = which has been 
referred, 1. to the idea of delzeving as suggested by ὠπειθοῦντες, (Bede, Corn, a 
Lapide, Zeger. Calvin also thinks this allowable ;) 2. to λόγῳ, in spite of the 
gender, (Jachmann, Sharpe ;) and 3. in spite of the distance, to ῥῆμα of ch. 
I : 25, (Carpzov, Augusti;) besides the references explained above. Comp. p. 
496, note 1. 

+ For surely there is no thought here of*Satan and innate depravity, (Aretius,) 
or of inveterate Jewish prejudices, (Hottinger.) 

t Calvin prefers this. 

§ Grotius, Hammond, Whitby, Benson, Bengel, Macknight, Burton, Steiger, 
Brown, Huther, and many others. 

|| Estius, Horneius, Cocceius, Leighton, Gill, Pott, Grashof, De Wette, Wie- 
singer. 


120 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


sins of men within the range of the Divine counsels, we need 
not give ourselves any concern about that. It is just the dif- 
ficulty which, as growing out of the relations between the 
sovereign God and the dependent creature, besets all our 
poor speculations about ‘eternal Providence, and certainly 
meets us no less frequently and nakedly in Scripture. The 
inspired writers, however, are very little troubled by it. For 
the most part, they seem scarcely conscious of its existence. 
Hence the frank simplicity with which they everywhere speak 
of God as hardening men’s hearts—causing them to err from 
His ways—giving them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they - 
should ποί 566, and ears that they should not hear—turning 
their hearts to hate His people—raising up Pharaoh for the 
very purpose of showing His power in him—bidding Shimei 
curse David—moving David to number the people—and so 
forth.* Not that in any instance the Holy One, can be 
thought of as the Author of sin by any direct, positive agency 
of His own. But as little must we shrink from asserting it 
to be one of the most ordinary methods of His righteous ad- 
ministration, to punish sin by the judicial abandonment of 
the sinner to the unchecked impulses of his depraved nature. 

On the strength of this familiar principle, then, we need 
not hesitate to adopt the wider and more obvious interpreta- 
tion of the text, as if it were said: Unto which disobedience 
and stumbling at that stumbling-stone,f not only have they 
now wilfully committed themselves, but ‘7hey were also ap- 
pointed’ of old. Easy as it may be to cavil at such a state- 
ment, there cannot be a reasonable question, that it is alto- 
gether a Scriptural one—one, therefore, at which interpreters, 
in the judgment even of one of the most accomplished ration- 
alists of Germany, had no occasion, as he says, to get fright- 
ened, and fly off to ungrammatical or illogical explanations.+ 
Meanwhile it remains true enough, that—to use the words of 


PX 4. 2.21: 7.113; Deut. 2: 30. 2 Sam. 1610s) ΠΣ 1; 15; 50 aos 
Gaye p ROM ΘΙ: 57, 18: Tila: ὅ,. Εἴο. 

+t Rom. 9 : 32. 

1 De Wette: ‘Vor diesem biblischen Gedanken, (vgl. Rém. 9 : 21 f.,) hatten 
die Ausll. nicht erschrecken und zu ungrammatischen oder unlogischen Erkla- 
rungen ihre Zuflucht nehmen sollen.’ 


Lecture XI—Chapter 2 : 7-10. 121 


our own good Archbishop *—‘here it were easier to lead you 
into a deep, than to lead you forth again. I will rather stand 
on the shore, and silently admire, than enter into it. This is 
certain, that the thoughts of God are all not less just in them- 
selves, than deep and unsoundable by us. His justice appears 
clear, in that man’s destruction is always the fruit of his own 
sin. But to give causes of God’s decrees without Himself is 
neither agreeable with the primitive being of the nature of 
God, nor with the doctrine of the Scriptures. This is sure, 
that God is not bound to give us further account of these 
things, and we are bound not toask it. Let these two words, - 
as St. Augustine says, answer all, “What art thou, O man?” 
and, “Oh! the depth!’ 


Having, by this passing glance at the sin and doom of the 
impenitent, confirmed what he had been saying of the neces- 
sity and value of faith, the Apostle quickly and joyfully reverts. 
to the happier illustration of the same theme, that was pre- 
sented in the high standing and calling of those who, as be- 
lievers, knew by experience ‘the preciousness’ of Christ. 
Behold again the proof—as if he had said—in your own case.. 
See what Christ’s ‘name, through faith in His name,’} has 
done for you. ‘Sut ye’—as for you, you in contrast with 
these unbelievers {—‘ ye are a chosen generation, a royal priest- 
hood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show 
forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness 
into Fis marvellous light’§ What a cluster of illustrious 
decorations! badges of a new and heavenly nobility, brighter 
than ever shone on king or emperor! These same things, 
indeed, Peter well knew, had been often spoken of the national 
Israel. But, Israel having proved unfaithful, and having so 
forfeited all the promises of the Mosaic covenant, the Apostle 
of the circumcision himself transfers them all to the New Tes- 
tament Church. Let us briefly review the resplendent insig- 


nia. 
‘Ye are a chosen generation’ or race,|| sprung from the same 


* Leighton, eMC Θ᾿ τ, : ΤΌ: {ὑμεῖς δέ. 
SUEX.. 19) 5 5) Os) ΟΠ 7. 20. 14.2.5: 22. 5.20) 21, etc, 
| γένος, (nowhere else rendered gexeratioz.) 


122 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


Original, partaking of a common life, and though now, like 
your Lord, despised and rejected of men, like Him also, 
elect* of God from the beginning, appointed not to wrath, 
but to the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus 
Christ ;} “α royal t priesthood, a kingdom of priests, kings and 
priests unto God, priests upon thrones, sharers in Christ’s 
own Melchisedec priesthood, mediators for all purposes of 
rule and blessing between God and the universe ;§ ‘a holy 
nation, a commonwealth of saints ; ‘a peculiar people, or, as 
the original phrase more strictly is, a people for a possession.|| 
That, however, is really what our translators meant by ‘a@ 2ε- 
culiar people**—to wit, a people whom God owns as His pecu- 
lium, His special property, for His own exclusive use. And 
you cannot but be aware that this idea, like all the rest, is 
one eminently Jewish. The oft-repeated promise of God was 
that obedient Israel should be to Him in this sense a peculiar 
people—a special treasure above all people, and in the faith 
of that promise the dying Moses sang: ‘The Lord’s portion 
is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance.’ Now, 
this prerogative ‘also has passed over, with the others, from 
the rebellious Jew to the Christian Church, and to her—with- 
out at all prejudicing the reversionary interests of re- 
pentant and restored Jerusalem—may most fitly be addressed 
the words of the prophet: ‘Thou shalt also be a crown of 
glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand 
of thy God.’ tt 


* ἐκλεκτὸν, as in v.63 ch. I : 2, etc. 

tis: 53.735 Ὁ Dhess.5 20. 

ἱ PaciAetov—in the New Testament, found only here. 

§ Ex. 19 +63 Zech. 6:13; Heb. 6:20; 7: 15-173; -Rev.1 1655+ 10, 

|| λαὸς εἰς περιποίησιν. Compare the use of this last word and its verb in Acts 
20:28; 1 Tim.93::13; Eph. 1:14; 1 Thess, 5 165 2 ἜΠΟΒΕ. 5: ΤΠ: ἘΠ: 
10 : 39. 

** Our translators followed Tyndale, the Geneva, and the Bishops’ Bibles in 
transferring to this place and Tit. 2 : 14 (λαὸν περιούσιον) the Vulgate rendering 
of AbID py, Populus peculiarss ; the simple mb of Ex. 19: 5 and Mal. 3: 17 


being given in the Vulgate by ἦγ peculium. Τὰ the latter place, which might 
properly be rendered thus, ‘They shall be to me, saith Jehovah of hosts, in 
the day that I create a possession,’ the Septuagint employs the very phrase of 
our text, εἰς περιποίησιν. 

711 Ex.:19 25,3 Deut. 4°: 205, ‘72,6 5, 14: 2, etc, ; Deuts§2) ΣΟ; Is.162 63. 


Lecture XI—Chapter 2 : 7-10. 123 


Accordingly, if the question be, For what purpose are all 
these lofty titles and privileges concentrated on believers ? the 
answer is, Not merely, nor mainly, for their personal gratifi- 
cation or their corporate glory, but, in the words of our Apos- 
tle, ‘that ye should show forth the pratses’—or, taking the 
more literal marginal rendering, that ye may publish the 
virtues, or excellencies*—‘ of Him who called you’—by the 
preaching of the word, and by the effectual working of His 
Spirit— out of darkness’—the darkness of ignorance and sin 
and death, the darkness of Satan’s kingdom—‘ zzto His mar- 
vellous light’—the light of life, of truth, of hope, of holiness, 
of joy—the light of grace and of glory—the light of God—/zs 
light. Truly, this is what Isaiah called it, when he foresaw 
its dawning—‘a great light’} in a dark world; what Peter, 
looking on its risen splendors, here calls it woxdrous,t amazing, 
fight; wondrous in its source, in its constitution, in its effi- 
cacy. As it was in the beginning, so is it now in the new 
creation: it shines out of darkness at the voice of God. § 

Now, the text assumes that in the work of saving men by 
Jesus Christ there is a display made of the Divine attributes 
or perfections ; and believers are reminded that their grand 
business in life—the ultimate design of the existence and 
organization of the Church—is to glorify God by letting this 
light shine in all their walk and conversation. To do so is 

even now the highest duty of all Christians, as such. It will 
be no less their supreme ambition and delight throughout 
eternity. ‘This people,’ saith God, ‘I have formed for myself ; 
they shali show forth my praise. || 

In the 10th verse we have a beautiful summing up of the 
whole matter, as it regards the contrast between the present 


* τὰς ἀρετὰς ἐξαγγείλητε [the only instance of this verb in the N. T.] τοῦ. 
καλέσαντος, (see ch. 1 : 15, p. 67.) By ἀρεταί the Septuagint repeatedly renders 
miban, (see especially the ground-text of the present passage, Is. 43 : 21 ;) and 


this fact, together with the Syriac interpretation, may have led our translators to 
deviate in this instance from all the older English versions, which have wirtwes. 
This term, which is retained in the margin of the common version, is now popu- 
larly used only for moral excellencies, which are not here exclusively intended. 
Comp..2 Pet. 1 : 3, p. 363. 

t Ish 91:2. 1 ϑαυμαστὸν. § 2 Cor. 4:6. | 15..432..:. 21. 


24 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


and former condition of the believers, and in respect also of 
the real cause of the blessed change: ‘ Who oxce* were not a 
people, but now are the people of God; who had not obtained 
mercy, but now have obtained mercy. 

In such terms’ as these had the prophet Hosea (1 : 6, 9; 
2 : 23) described the yet future restoration of Israel to the favor 
of God, after the present long period of rejection and desola- 
tion. They are applied by Peter, as likewise by Paul,f to the 
churches of their day, composed, as these were to a large ex- 
tent, of the Gentile element. Israel’s God had thus already 
begun to fulfil His ancient threatening : ‘They have moved me 
to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked 
me to anger with their vanities : and I will move them to jea- 
lousy with those which are not a people ; I will provoke them 
to anger with a foolish nation.’ ‘ 

Instead, therefore, of understanding, as very many do, the 
first division of the verse thus: ‘ Who once were not the people 
of God, but now are the people of God, we shall do better, I think, 
to interpret in this way ; that, so long as they were not God’s 
people, ‘ they were so base and miserable as not to be worthy 
of the name of a people at all’ $—they were not even a people, 
so far from being God’s people ; || but now they had been 
lifted out of that state of ignominious depression and name- 
less obscurity ; lifted so high as to have become not merely a 
people, but the people of God—belonging to Him and acknow- 
ledged by Him, and He was their God. Their present eleva- 
tion was as signal, as their former position had been degraded. 

And then it is added, as a simple and sufficient explanation 
of both: ‘ Who had not obtained’—or rather, rececved—‘ mercy, 
but now have received mercy ;** received it, when ye were not 


* οἱ ποτέ. Tt Rom. 9 : 25, 26. ΔἸ εις 52.521 § Leighton. 

|| Bengel: ‘Ne populus quidem, nedum Dei populus.’ De Wette: ‘A people 
that does not deserve the name, because destitute of all true peoplehood, ( Volks- 
thum, ) the true knowledge of God.’ In this remark, however, there is, perhaps, 
as Wiesinger objects, something of a too modern cast; though Wiesinger also 
concurs in translating οὐ λαὸς by kein Volk=no people, ein Nicht-Volk=a no-people. 

** As-in 2 Cor.4:1. So Beza changes the consecuti misericordiam of other 
versions and of his own earlier editions into donati misericordia. See also the Sy- 
riac.—Let the student note the change of participles, 7Aenuévot ., . ἐλεηϑέντες. 
‘Who once’ [for the ποτέ belongs also to the second negative] ‘ zweve zz the con- 


Lecture XI—Chapter 2 : 7-10. 125 


expecting it, nor seeking for it; without efforts of your own. 
God ‘was found of them that sought Him not ; He was made 
manifest unto them that asked not after Him.’* In all the in- 
numerable multitude of the redeemed there is not one soul 
whose spiritual histoty, at the turning-point of its destiny, is 
not given in these humbling, gracious words: ‘None eye 
pitied thee . . . to have compassion upon thee ; but thou wast 
cast out in the open field to the loathing of thy person, in the 
day that thou wast born. And when I passed by thee, and 
saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when 
thou wast in thy blood, Live; yea, I said unto thee when thou 
wast in thy blood, Live’ And as this is God’s account of 
the transaction, so is it also that of the redeemed themselves. 
‘While we were yet sinners,’ they all say, ‘ Christ died for us. 
. . . When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by 
the death of His Son. . . . So then it is not of him that will- 
eth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy,’ ¢ 
Once and again does Paul comprise the whole story of his 
own conversion in that one word, ‘I obtained mercy.’§ 


We cannot now dwell on the inferences that might be 
drawn from what has been said. But already, as we passed 
along in the exposition, you must have seen what ample ma- 
terial these verses furnish for reflection on the inexcusable- 
ness and ruinousness of unbelief—on the value of faith, as 
that whereby the chief of sinners is introduced to the enjoy- 
ment of the fulness of Christ—on the consequent dignity of 
true Christians—and the infinite obligations that rest on 
them, ‘whether they eat, or drink, or whatsoever they do, to 
do all to the glory of God.’ || 


dition of those that have not received mercy ; but, now, ye did receive mercy’—the 
great fact in your history. What was true ποτέ, continued true down to the point 
of transition from ποτέ to νῦν. Comp. ch. I : 12, (p. 51,) and the aorists of 2 Cor. 
Au ΔΠΓΟΙ ΤΊ 5 12. 10] 
* Rom. 10 : 20. tT Ez. 16 : 5,6, ¢ Rom. 5 : 8, 10; 9: 16. 
δ᾽ Τὸ Τ τη: tT 512. ΤΟΣ ΟΠ ἘΠ | 1 Cor. 10 : 31. 


LECTURE X/I. 


tee Te ee 2k EZ, 


‘DEARLY beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from 
fleshly lusts, which war against the soul ; having your conversation honest among 
the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evil-doers, they may by 
your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.’ 


HiruHervTo the Epistle has been mainly occupied with gene- 
ral exhortations addressed to Christians as such, and en- 
forced by a consideration of the spiritual and heavenly privi- 
leges common to them all. Much the larger portion of what 
remains is taken up chiefly with the special duties growing 
out of their various relations in the life that now is. 

The first of these relations that is brought into view is 
that which the suffering saints sustained to the unbelieving 
world,and its rulers ; and this section may be said to be intro- 
duced, as well as connected with what precedes, by the verses 
now before us, in which the motives to a pure ands blameless 
walk, such as had been described, are drawn as well from the 
present pilgrim state of the children of God, as from a regard 
to their own safety, and to God’s glory in the possible repen- 
tance and conversion of their heathen defamers. 

The earnestness of the writer is seen in the tender solem- 
nity of his address: ‘ Dearly beloved, I beseech you’—or sim- 
ply, Beloved, I exhort* you. A similar affectionateness of 
tone marks the commencement of a new topic also at ch. 
4:12. Itis an expression of the Apostle’s sense of the im- 
portance of the exhortation itself, while at the same time it 


* ’Ayanntol, παρακαλῶ. The common version of Peter’s Epistles translates 
aya. as above in all the other (7) instances. 


Lecture XII—Chapter 2 : τ, 12. 127, 


tends to conciliate confidence, and win obedience. ‘What I 
am going to say of the restraints and severities of the Chris- 
tian discipline and calling, Iam impelled to say by my love for 
you, knowing as I do that your real happiness both here and 
hereafter is involved in the matter,’ 

In the present case the warning is against indulgence in 
‘fieshly lusts, or ‘the lusts of the flesh,’ as they are called in 
our Second Epistle, (2: 18,) and by Paul in writing to the 
Ephesians, (2 : 3.) The phrase strictly includes all the irregu- 
lar, inordinate desires of ‘the carnal’ or fleshly, ‘mind.’* Pro- 
minent, no doubt, among these is that ‘lust of uncleanness,’+ 
which in the apostolic age deluged the empire with pollution, 
and turned the gorgeous palaces of the Czsars into sties of 
indescribable abominations. So familiar, indeed, had the popu- 
lar mind become with all forms of unchastity the most revolt- 
ing, as practised generally in society of every rank, and as 
imputed to the gods themselves, that neither the reason nor 
the conscience of the time was any longer offended by it. 

Bearing in mind this state of things, we can understand the 
frequency and sternness, with which Christ’s Apostles con- 
tinually and everywhere denounced this class of offences, as 
not once to be named among saints, and strove anxiously to 
guard the churches from relapsing into that ‘ corruption of the 
world through lust,’ from which they had but just escaped.t 
For the same reason it may well be supposed, that Peter here 
had a special reference to the fetid and copious fountain in our 
depraved nature, out of which proceed these foul streams of 
adulteries, fornications, and all lasciviousness. In the spirit, 
moreover, of a true Christian reformer, it is to the healing of 
the fountain, that he first directly applies himself. 

But, as I have already intimated, the phrase, ‘ fleshly lusts,’ 
need. not be thus limited. It can just as well include the ‘di- 
vers lusts and pleasures,’ to which the natural man is a slave 
—all ‘worldly lusts,’§ to use another expression of Paul ; that 
is, all lusts, or strong desires, that seek their gratification in 
the things of this world, and by which the world itself is 

* Rom. 8 : 7 (τὸ φρόνημα τῆς σαρκὸς. { 2 Pet.-2 : Io. 


# Eph. 5 235 Bikes 4. 
§ Tit. 3 : 3, (δουλεύοντες ἐπιϑυμίαις καὶ ἡδοναῖς ποικίλαις 3) 2 : 12. 


128 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


swayed in its movements and aims—‘the lust of the flesh, and 
the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,’ according to the 
enumeration of yet another Apostle *—‘ the world’s accursed 
trinity.’ + When Paul, therefore, undertakes in one place to 
give a catalogue of ‘the works of the flesh, he begins with 
‘adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, but imme- 
diately adds ‘idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, 
wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunken- 
ness, revellings, and such like. And so elsewhere, when urg- 
ing his brethren to ‘make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil 
the lusts thereof, he specifies ‘ rioting and drunkenness, cham- 
bering and wantonness, strife and envying. ἢ 

From ‘fleshly lusts, then, of whatever sort—from those 
intemperate desires after earthly things, which spring from 
the flesh, or man’s corrupt nature, and in so far as they par- 
take of that corruption—from any such ‘love of the world,-or 
of the things that are in the world’ §—believers are exhorted 
‘to abstain’—to hold themselves off from,|| as from the touch 
of defilement, or the breath of the pestilence. 

And, as they could be expected to do this only in the 
strength of the new life and hope which they had received 
from above, the exhortation is addressed to them as ‘ strangers 
and pilgrims. Being the children of God, Peter would have 
them ever feel that they were from home —/forezgners ** — 
among those who knew not their Father. It was well also to 


* J John 2: 16. + Leighton. 

t Gal. 5 : 19-21; Rom. 13 : 13, 14. 

§ 1 John 2:15. 

|| ἀπέχεσϑαι---5 in the parallel 1 Thess. 4:3. Here, as there, Lachmann 
adds, but on very slender authority, ὑμᾶς, (not ὑμεῖς, as Bloomfield says ; strangely 
adding, ‘which it’—the received text—‘ requires,’)—Some (Erasmus, Bengel, 
Tischendorf, Theile, Bloomfield latterly) read, with Huther’s approbation, 
ἀπέχεσϑε, after many MSS., including the three uncials, A, C,G. And this read- 
ing—which, however, may have been only an emendation to suit the ἔχοντες of 
v. 12—our translators seem to have adopted from Erasmus and the Aldine edi- 
tion, or they may have simply retained what they found in the older Protestant 
versions. At least, there is no necessity for regarding ἀπέχεσϑαι as an instance 
of the infinitive used imperatively. 

** Asin Eph. 2 : 19; where πώροικοι is joined with ξένοι, to which latter term 
strange or stranger is always (except Rom. 16 : 23, host) appropriated in the com- 
mon version, 


Lecture XII—Chapter 2 : ΤΙ, 12. 129 


remind them, that here they were but sojourners *—way faring 
men that tarried for a night, ‘having no continuing city’ in 
the wilderness through which lay their pilgrimage.t How 
great the inconsistency and the shame, if during their alien 
and transient residence they should allow themselves to be so 
‘entangled in the affairs of this life,’ as to arrest, or even de- 
lay, their Zion-ward progress; if, naving tasted of the hea- 
venly gift, the good word of God, and the kindness of the 
Lord, they should still retain their old keenness of relish for 
sinful delights—the flesh-pots of the house of bondage; if 
the chosen generation, the holy nation, the peculiar people, 
practically disowning their high calling, should continue to 
live as do others, and soil the vestments of the royal priest- 
hood by ‘embracing dunghills!’t What if the angels that 
came to Sodom at even, forgetting their own holy associations 
and divine mission, had rather conceived feelings of sympathy 
with the doomed city’s guilty revelry? A like incongruity 
there is between the existence of fleshly lusts even in the 
heart of a Christian, and his claim of citizenship in the better 
country, or his brief pilgrim relations while on the way thi- 
ther. And the habitual consciousness of this could not but 
act as a very powerful restraint on these inward evil tenden- 
cies. The first consideration, therefore, by which the Apostle 
would secure compliance with the precept is the change that 
had been wrought in the worldly position of his brethren by 
their introduction to the higher and more enduring relations 
of faith. 

But not only is indulgence in fleshly lusts dishonorable to 
the Christian. It is, says Peter, as hurtful and perilous, as it 
is unbecoming. They ‘war against the soul’—the very me- 
tropolis and citadel of man’s nature. They may also inju- 
riously affect his other interests. In their outward working 


* Asinch. 1:1; see p.9. By some (Pagninus, Beza, Piscator, Estius, Stei- 
ger, De Wette, Wiesinger, etc.) the verse is construed thus: ‘I exhort that as 
foreigners and sojourners ye abstain ;’ and then it presents a consideration that 
should move the readers to abstain, rather than one that prompted the exhorta- 
tion. But the essential result is the same. 

ἣν ΘΕ ΤΆ: Sc) ΠΕΣ 12..Ξ [Ὡς 

TONS. 2; O)5 21 Lime) 2.57.3 ΠΙῈΡ; 01:.45.5; leans Aisi 5. 


130 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


they may hinder his success in business—waste his substance 
—hblight his reputation—consume his bodily health—and 
bring him down in sorrow to a premature grave. But even 
that is not the worst. By their very presence within, they 
‘war against the soul’ They trouble its peace by the fire and 
tumult of passion, or by corroding cares. They darken its 
vision—taint all its powers with weakness and corruption— 
intercept its communications with spiritual things and hea- 
venly influences—and so threaten its life. For this war is 
relentless and exterminating, and, but for the mighty suc- 
cors which Divine grace sends to human necessities, can re- 
sult only in the soul’s second death—in its final and perpetual 
severance from God, from holiness and joy. According to 
the repeated, terrible warnings of inspiration: ‘Then when 
lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is 
finished, bringeth forth death. ... For the end of those 
things is death... . To be carnally minded is death.’*— 
Here again surely is argument enough for jealously watching 
and rigorously suppressing the first motions of sin in the 
heart, and for cherishing a pure and heavenly mind. 


The 12th verse, however, takes us still a step further, in 
regard both to duty and motive. Thus far the exhortation 
has been to the culture of the inner world of the spirit—the 
eradication of the roots of bitterness indigenous to the soil— 
the making of the tree good, that the fruit may be good also— 
the keeping of the heart with all diligence; for out of it are 
the issues of life. But now the outer life itself is brought 
under review—whatever is subject to the censure, not only of 
God and the conscience, but also of our fellow-men. 

And here I would have you remark the admirable modera- 
tion—the absolute freedom from excess or extravagance in any 
direction—the unfailing common sense, so to speak—that cha- 
racterizes the New Testament writers. Revealing, as they 
alone do, the unspeakable value of the soul, they make no 
show of despising or neglecting the body, but on the contrary 
treat it with all reverence as what has equally been redeemed 


* James 1:15; Rom. 6: 21; 8:6. Tt Matt..r2 2193.5, Ῥτὸν. 4. : 23. 


Lecture XII—Chapter 2:11, 12. 131 


with the blood of Christ, and is now the temple of the Holy 
Ghost, and the heir of the resurrection. Dwelling much on 
the duty and the delights of heavenly contemplation, with 
what horror would they yet have shrunk from the fanaticism, 
which, under pretence of its spiritual raptures, has sometimes 
claimed exemption from the restraints of morality, or of ordi- 
nary decency! Proclaiming it as the one grand principle of 
the Christian life, to ‘walk by faith, not by sight,’ and them- 
selves living, as no other men ever did, under ‘the powers of 
the world to come,* in no instance do they betray the least 
disposition, such as was rife in the Church not long after 
their departure, to withdraw themselves or their converts from 
contact with this world’s affairs, or beyond the reach of its 
temptations. And, finally, spurning with a calm resolution 
all thought of submitting their religious faith and practice to 
the control of society, its opinions or its laws, they are at the 
same time very far from being indifferent to the impressions 
which their fellow-men may receive from observation of their 
conduct. Everywhere they at once exemplify, and inculcate, 
the obligation, not only to lay no stumbling-block before 
others, and, if it be possible, as much as lieth in us, to live 
peaceably with all men, but also to let our light shine, not for 
our own glory, but for others’ guidance and comfort, and even, 
so far as fidelity to truth and our one Master, Christ, will 
allow, to become all things to all men, that we may by all 
means save some.ft Paul himself, though he accounted it ‘a 
very small thing’ in its bearings on his own personal interests, 
‘that he should be judged of man’s judgment,’ yet in his ten- 
der solicitude that the ministry, and through it the Gospel, 
should not be blamed, and men’s souls needlessly prejudiced, 
was ever careful, even in his laborious and disinterested enter- 
prises of Christian charity, to ‘provide things honest’—that 
is, fair, comely, honorable—‘ not only in the sight of the Lord, 
but also in the sight of men.’ And hence too his anxiety that 
the Thessalonians, while waiting for the Son of God from 


* 2 Corns 73 ΠΕΡ 15. 
t TRomigecS 5) 14): 15; Matt.5:: 165,% Cor. 9 : 22. 


132 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


heaven, should ‘ walk honestly ’—decently, becomingly—‘ to- 
ward those without.’* 

The same spirit of apostolic longing for the salvation of 
others breathes in the passage before us: ‘ Having your con- 
versation honest’—or, in modern phrase, your walk comely, your 
behavior good}—‘ among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak 
against you as evil-doers, they may by your good works, which 
they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation, 

Here, you perceive, is no wish that the forezguers and so- 
journers should shrink from intercourse with those among 
whom they temporarily dwell; much less that they should 
expend their care on assuming virtues that they do not pos- 
sess, and so keeping up an appearance of superior sanctity ; 
as if, to use Leighton’s illustration, you should ‘stick some 
figs, or hang some clusters of grapes upon a thorn-bush, though 
they cannot grow upon it.’ No; their ‘ dchavior’ must be 
‘ good, really, substantially so—the natural, healthy, inevitable 
outworking of a.good and honest heart. And this ‘ among,’ 
before the eyes of, ‘te Gentiles, and with a view to their pro- 
fiting, through the correction of their misconceptions, and the 
removal of their prejudices, and the silencing of ignorant or 
malicious misrepresentations. 

Of this form of trial our Lord had forewarned His disci- 
ples in the very beginning ; as where, in His Sermon on the 
Mount, He gave intimation of a coming time, ‘when men 
should revile them, and persecute them, and should say all 
manner of evil against them falsely for His sake.’ ὁ And 
that the warning did not fail of a speedy fulfilment, is abun- 
dantly apparent from the New Testament history. It was 
soon found to be an easy and plausible thing, to defame the 
announcement of a free justification by sovereign grace, 
through the faith of the sinner, as a doctrine of licentious- 
ness ; to excite suspicions of disloyalty and lawlessness 
against men who gloried in being under law to another King, 


* 1 Cor. 4:3; 2 Cor.6:3; 8:21, (καλὰ) 1 Thess. 1: 10; 4: 12, (evoxq- 
μόνως.) 

+ ἀναστροφὴν (as in ch.1: 15; see Ρ. 68)... .. καλήν, (the same word as in 
the latter half of the verse, and ch. 4 : το, etc.) 

ΤΊΝΑ Ε ΕἾ 


Lecture XTI—Chapter 2 : τι, 12. 133 


one Jesus ; to slander even the holy private assemblies of the 
faithful for their feasts-of love, and for communion in the 
body and blood of Christ, as devoted to the celebration of 
such vile mysteries as were common among the heathen them- 
selves; and, in a word, to malign as revolutionary disturbers 
of the world’s peace, and enemies of the human race, those 
who waged open war on the ancient idolatries, and denounced 
the wrath of God against all ungodliness and unrighteousness 
of men. And thus, about the very time when our Epistle 
was written, the pure and benevolent religion of the Son of 
God our Saviour came to be ‘everywhere spoken against’ as 
‘a strange and baleful superstition’—‘a deadly superstition,’ 
and His followers were generally regarded as infamous for 
their crimes, and the storm of governmental and popular . 
fury, that had been darkening and threatening for years, 
burst in thunder and fire on the unresisting flock of God.* 
To this state of affairs there are numerous allusions in our 
pistie, (eb: 1276; 3.7065 4. 49 2) 16, 17.) 

Meanwhile, however, as in the truth of the Gospel, fairly 
presented to the soul, there is a selfevidencing power that 
commends it to every man’s conscience in the sight of God, 
so also in every man, even the most depraved, there is that 
which, in his more favorable hours of observation and reflec- 
tion, 





‘feels how awful goodness is, and sees 
Virtue in her shape how lovely.’ ἢ 


To this silent witness and ally of the Church in the hearts of 
her enemies, Peter would have his brethren address the ap- 
peal of a holy life: ‘ Having your behavior among the Gentiles 
good, that, whereas’—rather, according to the margin, whereix 
—‘ they speak against you as evil-doers, they may, from the good 
works which they behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.’§ 


* Luke 23/2 ΖΦ. Onn) ΤΟ 12, Acts- 07 ΞΟ: 7; 21:5}; 20 2.22  ΕΌΤΩΣ 191 
3:8; 1 Cor.9:21. See the famous passages in Suetonius, /Vero, (‘ Christiani, 
genus hominum superstitionis nove ac malefice,’) and Tacitus, 47m. xv. 44, (‘per 
flagitia invisos .. Christianos. ... exitiabilis superstitio. .. odio humani generis 
convicti.’) 

ἢ ΖΘ ΟΣ roe. t Milton, P. 2. ἵν. 847-8. 


ὃ τὴν ἀναστροφὴν ὑμῶν ἐν τῦις ἔϑνεσιν ἔχοντες καλὴν" iva ἐν ᾧ καταλαλοῦσιν 


134: Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


The meaning seems plainly to be this: Let your course of 
life be so clearly and in all respects good—good in all those 
relations which I am about to specify—that even in matters, 
in regard to which your heathen neighbors do now readily 
and grossly misconceive and misrepresent you, they may at 
last be won to acknowledge their error, and to ‘report that 
God is in you of a truth,’* and glorify Him as the giver of 
such grace to men—glorify Him by their own humble confes- 
sion of sin, and thankful acceptance of His mercy. I can 
scarcely doubt that, as Peter wrote the words, his mind re- 
verted to the memorable scene on the mountain’s brow, when, 
standing near his Lord, he heard that saying from His lips: 
‘Ye are the light of the world. . . . Let your light so shine 
before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify 
your Father which is in heaven.’ ἢ 

As to the phrase, ‘day of visitation, God is said to visit 
men, when He specially displays toward them either His 
mercy or His wrath; and for each of these purposes He has 
a ‘day’—a set time, definite and limited.f Some, accord- 
ingly, have thought that a day of judgment in this world is 
what is here meant, or else the day of final judgment. But 
it is much more natural, as yielding a more obvious sense, 
and one that accords better with the rest of the sentence, to 
understand the Apostle as referring to a day of gracious visi- 


ὑμῶν ὡς κακοποιῶν, ἐκ τῶν καλῶν ἔργων ἐποπτεύσαντες TA. The student will 
note the emphatic position of καλήν. In ἔχοντες we have an example of a not 
uncommon anacoluthon, whereby force and prominence are given to the partici-. 
pial clause. Winer cites as other instances 2 Cor. 9: 10, 11,13; Eph. 4 : 2, ete.— 
The whereas of our English version and the Bishops’ Bible is for Aro co guod of 
Castalio, Beza, etc. ; but it does not express the Greek. And equally objection- 
able are the renderings gwoniam, since, (Hottinger and others; as if ἐν ᾧ τ ἐφ᾽ ᾧ,) 
and wile, (Penn and others; as if for the ἐν ᾧ χρόνῳ of Mark 2 : 19 and John 
5 : 7.)—Macknight takes ἐκ partitively ; some of your good works. But it rather 
points to the source of the d0$a.—’Emontetoavrec (Lachmann, Tischendorf, 
Alford read ἐποπτεύοντες, (Sin. B,) deholding. Inthe New Testament this verb is 
found only here and ch. 3 : 2,) lit. having beheld them. For the Greek does not 
even imply a relative, to which τῶν ἔργων is antecedent. The τῶν is to be ex- 
plained as an article of repeated mention, τῶν καλῶν ἔργων being really involved 
in the previous dvaotpogyy KaAjv.—F or δοξάσωσι, Sin. has δοξάσουσιν. 

* y Cor. 14: 25. + Matt. 5 : 14, 16. 

τ Comp. Jobwrot24 31+ Δ᾽; °Ps.'8:4; Is. 10:13; Jer τὸν: 255 mieuke 
19 : 44, etc. 


Lecture XII—Chapter 2: 11, 12. 135 


tation—the very day which had then just dawned, and which 
is still shining, during which, according to James’s description 
of the first calling and conversion of the Gentiles through 
Peter’s ministry, ‘God is visiting the Gentiles to take out of 
them a people for His name.’* Now, says Peter, it will 
greatly further the accomplishment of this benignant design, 
if you, who are already called, be careful to ‘adorn the doc- 
trine of God our Saviour in all things.’ { Be sure, therefore, 
that you keep that object ever distinctly in view. 


But alas! my hearers, is it not true of some of you, as of 
Jerusalem of old, that you too have not yet ‘known the time 
of your visitation’? What if it should terminate, while the 
things which belong unto your peace are still hid from your 
eyes! Must it not then be, that, as in her case, so in yours, 
some great catastrophe will finally avenge God’s abused pa- 
tience, and slighted grace? 

If, on the other hand, you have obtained mercy, and have 
bowed yourselves down in glad submission before the hea- 
venly Visitant, then learn from what has been said the two- 
fold duty to which, as foreigners and sojourners here on the 
earth, you too, like these primitive brethren, are now solemnly 
and irrevocably bound. You are, first, to be jealous over 
yourselves with godly jealousy—aiming perpetually at a more 
and more complete healing of the plagues of your own hearts 
—daily perfecting holiness in the fear of God.§ And then, 
not resting selfishly satisfied with your own individual bless- 
ing, but ‘looking every man also on the things of others,’|| 
you are to labor for their salvation as for your own. Nay, 
one main impulse in prosecuting the work of your own sanc- 
tification must be, that you may thereby hope, through the 
accompanying visitations of God’s quickening grace, still fur- 
ther to enlarge the number of His worshippers, and swell, by 
means of ever new voices, the anthem of His praise. 


* Acts 15 : 14.—Céicumenius thought that the reference was to the examina- 
tion, inquisition (ἐξέτασις) which the heathen would institute as to the life of the 
Christians. This idea was at first adopted by Bengel, (as it has been by a few 
others ;) but afterward he explained the phrase of the last day. 

fete 28: TO. t Luke 19 : 42, 44. 

Sian gs Gs 3502 ΘΟ ἘΠ ΠΣ || Phil. 2 : 4. 


LECTURE ΜΙ 


1 PETER 2°: 13-16. 


‘SuBMIT yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether 
it be to the king, as supreme ; or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by 
Him for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the praise of them that do well. 
For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the igno- 
rance of foolish men: as free, and not using your liberty for a cloak of malicious- 
ness, but as the servants of God.’ 


In the preceding verse the writer urges his brethren to 
maintain an ‘honest conversation, or comely, good behavior, 
‘among the Gentiles, from a consideration of the salutary in- 
fluence which they might thus exert on their heathen obsery- 
ers. In the verses now before us this general idea is illustra- 
ted by applying it to one of their more outward and obvious 
relations—that, namely, which they held to civil government. 
Nearly all editions of the Greek Testament plainly indicate 
this connection by the insertion of a word which our trans- 
lators have dropped. Instead of simply saying, ‘ Swdmzt your- 
selves, as in our version, the general reading is, ‘ Swbmezt your- 
selves, therefore, * that is, with a view to that same result, the 
glory of God in the conversion of the Gentiles. 

The topic in hand is the political duty of Christians—a topic 
neither too secular nor too delicate for apostolic treatment. 
There is not, indeed, here, or elsewhere in the New Testa- 
ment, any discussion of the comparative merits of different 
forms of government, or of particular governmental measures. 
In so far as Christians might at any time be called to bear a 


* Lachmann and Alford omit the ody, on the authority of Sin. A, B, C, and 
the Amiatine Vulgate. The Syriac also wants it. Our translators followed Wi- 
clif, Tyndale, and the Geneva Bible. 


Lecture XI1I.—Chapter 2 : 13-16. 137 


part in originating the one or the other, they would no doubt 
have to be guided by their judgment of what was at once con- 
sistent with justice, and conducive to the general good. All 
that the Apostle undertakes to determine is the duty they owe 
to the actually existing government, whatever may have been 
its origin, and to the laws, as the declaration of the govern- 
ment’s will. p 

Now, in these respects, though with the limitations to be 
noted hereafter, that duty is nearly summed up in the one 
word, submission. And, comparing Peter’s politics with 
Paul’s, we find the two agree on this point precisely. ‘ Let 
every soul,’ says the latter, ‘be subject ’—or submit itself; for 
the term he uses is the one that we have in the text—‘ unto 
the higher powers.’ * And says the former: ‘ Swbmzt your- 
selves + to every ordinance of man’—literally, to every human 
creation, or creature, or institution t—‘for the Lord's sake ; 
whether to the king’ §—for the old republican hatred of the 
very name of king, which had even deterred the Czesars from 
assuming that title at Rome,|| did not exist to the same ex- 
tent among the Greeks or the Jews ; and in the New Testa- 
ment, accordingly, we find it applied to the Emperor**—‘whe- 
ther to the king as supreme, as the head of the state and chief 
magistrate,}} ‘or Zo governors as sent by him, t% and so bearing 
only a delegated authority. In other words, Christians are 
required to submit themselves to civil rulers of every rank 
and degree, acting within their severally appropriate spheres. 


Observe now the grounds on which this duty rests, or the 
motives by which it is enforced. 


* Rom. 13 : I, (ὑποτασσέσϑω.) . 

7 ὑποτάγητε. A middle force in the aorist passive is not uncommon. Comp. 
ταπεινώϑητε of chap. 5 : 6. 

t ἀνϑρωπίνῃ (omitted in Sin.) κτίσει. 

§ εἴτε βασιλέι. 

|| ‘The slaves of Commodus or Caracalla would have started at the name of 
royalty.’ Gibbon, Roman Empire, ch. 44. 

** Comp. Matt. 10:18; 14:9; John 19:15; 1 Tim. 2: 2, etc. 

+t Whereas in Rom. 13 : 1 the superiority is that which belongs to all rulers in 
their relations to the ruled. 

tt ὡς δὶ αὐτοῦ πεμπομένοις. Some of the older interpreters (as Calvin and 
Estius) err in referring the pronoun to God. 


138 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


1. ‘ Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake’—for the sake, 
that is, of the Lord Christ. The very relation to Him, in 
which you glory, so far from annulling or impairing this obli- 
gation, adds to it force and sacredness. 

Viewed in certain aspects, all magistracy is, no doubt, a 
‘human institution. Not only are the laws of human enact- 
ment; the legislative authority itself, however variously or- 
ganized, has its foundations in the necessities of human soci- 
ety, and exists by the will or the sufferance of those over 
whom it is exercised. Its jurisdiction, moreover, is confined 
to the secular affairs of men—their mutual rights and wrongs 
in the intercourse of this life. With what Scripture calls 
‘things pertaining to God’* it cannot properly or usefully 
intermeddle. And on all these accounts civil government 
may be characterized as a human thing. 

But it is also Divine. He who made man made him for 
society, and whatever is essential to the existence of society 
is so by the appointment of our Creator. There can, how- 
ever, be no society without order, and no order without law, 
and no law without a lawgiver, who shall likewise provide for 
its execution. All these things, therefore, are of God. The 
‘sin, which has entered into the world, has indeed corrupted 
and defiled every earthly relation, but no such original rela- 
tion has it abolished ; and, in this particular matter of gov- 
ernment, it has rather strengthened the necessity for it, 
and for the multiplication of legal restraints and penalties. 
Wherever, accordingly, men are found, though it be in a den 
of robbers, or in a community of rebels and pirates, they are 
still found living under law of some kind. And the very 
universality of the fact, as it results inevitably from the joint 
working of their nature and their circumstances, is no less an 
indication of the will of Providence. 

Thus, what our text describes as a ‘human institution’ is, 
in a far higher and ultimate sense, ‘the ordinance of God.’ It 
is expressly so styled in that famous context in the Epistle 
to the Romans, (13 : I-7,) to which I have already referred. . 
There Paul is most emphatic and absolute in proclaiming, 


* Heb. 2:17; 5:1. 1. Τί, ὁ τ τὸ, 


. Lecture XT11—Chapter 2 : 13-16. 139 


that ‘there is no power but of God: the powers that be’— 
without regard to the manner in which they came to be; 
whether by conquest, or inheritance, or popular suffrage— 
‘the powers that be are ordained of God.’ And so he does 
not hesitate to speak of even heathen magistrates as no less 
truly, though less directly, and for quite different purposes, 
‘ministers of God, than. the Apostles themselves.* That 
‘the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it 
to whomsoever He will ’—that over all the earth, in Babylon 
and in pagan Rome, as in Mount Zion and the city of the 
Great King, in the rise and organization of empires, as in 
their progress and decline and fall, ‘the Heavens do rule’— 
this truth, which Christendom itself in our day is hastening 
to forget, proud Nebuchadnezzar of old was taught by his own 
miraculous humiliation.t And the same general truth may 
be considered as implied in the injunction to ‘submit our- 
selves to every human institution for the Lord’s sake. This 
is as much as to say, that our obedience will be defective in 
its principle, unless it recognizes the presence in human gov- 
ernment of an authority more sacred and august than that of 
man, whether of the sovereign emperor, or of the sovereign 
people. ‘God standeth in the congregation of the mighty ; 
776 judgeth among the gods.’ 

But our Apostle’s phraseology suggests more than this. 
In the Epistles the word ‘ Lord, except when it is used as a 
substitute for the Old Testament Jehovah, almost invariably 
designates the Lord Jesus Christ, and there is no reason to 
doubt that it does so here, as well as in the third verse of this 
chapter. Into His hands, as the well-beloved Son, the Father 
hath committed all judgment—all power in heaven and in 
earth—the entire judicial and executive prerogative of the 
Godhead. He is thus the Head over all things—the Prince 
of the kings of the earth—and by Him kings reign, and 
princes decree justice.§ If, therefore, ye call Him Master 
and Lord, fail not to reverence Him in the persons of those 


* Comp. Rom. 13 : 4, 6 with Rom. 15 : 16; 2 Cor. 6: 4, etc. 
t Dan. 4 : 25, 26. ἘΠ Ps. 82: 1. 
§ John 5: 22; Matt. 28:18; Eph. 1: 22; Rev. 1:5; Prov. 8: 15. 


140 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


who, however unconsciously it may be to themselves, are in 
reality His vicegerents among men. Let your willing sub- 
jection to human law be a service rendered to Christ Him- 
self, 

Nor is it to be overlooked that, as this precept of obedience 
to earthly rulers now came to the Church through the Apos- 
tles from ‘¢he Lord, and on that account also rested on His 
authority, so it had formerly been illustrated again and again, 
‘while He yet dwelt among us, in His personal teaching and 
example. Peter at least had not forgotten the scene, when, 
calmly pointing to the image and superscription on the 
tribute money, Jesus baffled the crafty malignity of His ene- 
mies by requiring them to ‘render unto Czesar the things 
which are Czesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s,’* 
And he remembered, too, how the mouth of a fish from the 
Sea of Galilee had been made to furnish to his own hand the 
means of satisfying the law’s demand, not only for himself, 
but for the free Son of God and Heir of the temple ;} and 
how, when his rash zeal drew the sword in his Master’s de-_ 
fence, the Master sternly commanded him to return the sword 
into its sheath, and healed the wound it had made.t Yes, 
the unresisting Lamb of God, whom more than twelve legions 
of angels stood ready to rescue from the hands of all His foes, 
silently yields Himself to the arrest, and dies an uncomplain- 
ing victim to the unjust sentence of human law. 

On these several accounts, then—inasmuch as the sove- 
reignty of the Lord Jesus Christ is represented by the kings 
and governors of the earth, and His will in this regard has 
been clearly conveyed to His disciples both by word and 
deed—the Apostle may be understood as enjoining on his 
brethren submission to every human institution ‘for the 
Lord's sake.’—But he immediately adds other, though second- 
ary, considerations. 


* Matt, 22 ; 21. 

+ Matt. 17 : 24-27. For, though the tax paid on this occasion.was probably 
for the use of the temple, and may have had its origin in the Mosaic statute of 
Ex. 30 : 11-16, still the incident is none the less fitted to illustrate our Lord’s 
spirit of subjection to authority, Divine and human. 

$ Luke 22 : 50, 51; John 18 : Io, 11. 


Lecture XIII.—Chapter 2 : 13-16. 141 


2. Thus, in the 14th verse he adverts to the salutary ends 
for which government exists. Submit yourselves 
whether to the king as supreme, or to governors as sent by 
him for the punishment of evil-doers,* and the praise of well- 
doers,’ + it being, of course, implied that the purposes for 
which the supreme power commissions its subordinates, 
equally define the spirit and aim of its own immediate action. 

What, then, are those purposes? Not the regulation of 
men’s opinions, nor the determination of their religious 
faith, nor the coercion of their consciences. Into the inner 
sanctuary of the soul, where it holds converse with spiri- 
tual and eternal things, the civil magistrate, be his station 
what it may, must not seek to intrude. His place of minis- 
try, if I may so say, is in the outer court; his domain, that 
which is seen and temporal. Especially is it his care to 
maintain public order—to dispense justice between man and 
man—by all necessary pains and penalties to repress and 
punish violence and fraud, while, even by so doing, as well as 
by other and positive manifestations of his favor, he protects 
and encourages the honest and beneficent classes of society. 

Now, Christ’s followers being by their profession bound to 
study, not merely the things that make for peace, but whatso- 
ever is good and profitable unto men—‘if there be any virtue, 
and if there be any praise’ {—civil government, it is obvious, 
according to this statement of its province and functions, 
can have no other than a benign aspect toward them. ‘ Rulers,’ 
says Paul, ‘are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. 
Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which 
is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: for he is the 
minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which 
is evil, be afraid; for he bedreth not the sword in vain: for 
he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon 
him that doeth evil.’§ And so another motive for loyal 


* According to the received text: ‘for the punishment, indeed, of ev.’ But 
the μέν has long been cancelled by critical editors, (on very large authority, inclu- 
ding Sin.) 

ἱ ἔπαινον δὲ ἀγαϑοποιῶν. The last word occurs nowhere else in the New Tes- 
tament. 

} Rom: 142193 ΤΙ. 2. 8; Philo 4: ὃ; § Rom. 13 : 3, 4. 


142 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


submission to human government is, that government is the 
guardian and friend of good men. 

But what, you may ask, if this ideal be not actually realized ? 
What if the rulers themselves be wicked men, and the gov- 
ernment itself a tyranny and oppression? Must Christians 
in that case still ‘needs be subject, not only for wrath,’ or 
from fear of personal consequences, ‘ but also for conscience’ 
sake’?* The question is not without its difficulties ; and 
only a brief answer can here be attempted. 

(1.) In the first place, let it be considered that, even under 
what we may regard as bad governments, the good resulting 
from them to the mass of the community greatly preponde- 
rates over the evil ; that there is probably no government, not 
even that of the worst slave plantation, that is not on the 
whole to be preferred to anarchy, or no government at all ; 
and that, therefore, the argument from the uses of govern- 
ment never quite fails. 

(2.) In the second place; there is no question whatever 
that, when human government—lI do not say errs, however 
grievously, in the administration of its own affairs, but—tran- 
scends the limits prescribed by its very nature and the ends of 
its being, and Czesar arrogates to himself the things that are 
God’s, forbidding what God has commanded, or commanding 
what God has forbidden, our duty in every such case is to 
hearken unto God more than unto men.f In the conflict of 
authorities the higher authority must rule. As Jeremy Tay- 
lor has it: ‘Though we must obey man for God's sake, yet 
we must never disobey God for man’s sake.’ Or suppose 
that, after taking all pains to inform ourselves aright, we are 
even mistaken in the belief that in some particular case there 
does exist this conflict between the human and the Divine, 
we are still to follow the light that isin us. Under no cir- 
cumstances can a man be at liberty to violate his conscience 
toward God. Nor does this course necessarily involve any real 
violation of the apostolic precept. The Apostles themselves 
did not violate it, when, in carrying out their great commis- 
sion, they resolutely confronted the threatening Sanhedrim 


* Rom, 15: 5. ‘t Acts 4: 19. t Great Exemplar, i. 5. 19. 


Lecture XITII—Chapter 2 : 13-16. 143 


and a frowning Empire, and were everywhere met with bonds 
and imprisonment and death. Instantly preaching the word 
in season and out of season, they maintained their loyalty to 
Him who is the King of kings and the Lord of lords; and 
they at the same time rendered due honor to His representa- 
tives on earth, by yielding themselves without resistance or 
murmur to the magistrate’s sword, though wielded by un- 
righteous and profane and cruel hands. 

(3.) In the third place, the Christian law does not strip a 
man of whatever civil rights his country’s law allows him, nor 
does it prohibit him from defending those rights in any law- 
ful way. Again and again we find Paul standing on the dig- 
nity of a Roman citizen, and on another occasion he firmly 
appeals from governors sent by the Emperor to the Emperor 
himself.* On the same principle an American citizen, in 
perfect consistency with all Christian obligation, may not 
only prosecute his cause from court to court, but use his 
influence and his suffrage for changing his rulers and the 
entire policy of the public administration. Nay, on the very 
same principle, should those rulers, when thus legitimately 
set aside, persist in retaining by force their seats of power, or 
should they at any time, and in any other way, undertake to 
act in open defiance of the law and constitution of the land, 
then, due regard being had to circumstances, the prospect of 
success, and like prudential considerations, the American 
Christian might properly join his fellow-citizens in suppress- 
ing the usurpers, and that, if necessary, by the sword. Very 
probably it would be his solemn duty so to do, even at the 
hazard of his own life. In such a government as ours. the 
law and the constitution are the supreme authority, to which 
all others must yield. In the full apostolic sense, they too 
are ‘human institutions, and are ‘ ordained of God,’ and to 
them our rulers, from the President down, are equally with 
us bound to ‘ swdmit themselves. When, therefore, in some 
evil time, rebellion against these breaks forth in high places, 
and the sword, that was forged for their defence, is prostitut- 
ed to the work of their subversion, a free nation offends not 


Ἔ ΛΙΟΕΒ ΤΟΥ: 27». 22: 95); 25 :11- 


. 144 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


God by wresting, that sword from the transgressor’s grasp, 
and wielding it for his own swift and condign punishment. 
In all this, I conceive, there is still nothing at variance with 
either the letter or the spirit of the text ; which, in truth, I 
need scarcely add, contemplates no such case as that. 

(4.) But now, lastly, these things being understood and re- 
membered, the Apostle’s rule may safely be taken as absolute 
and universal in its application. It does forbid utterly, on 
the part of Christians, all seditious plotting against the es- 
tablished government and laws, and the constituted authori- 
ties, of the empire, as well as all active resistance to the same. 
Citizens of the ‘kingdom which cannot be moved,’ they must 
not ‘meddle with them that are given to change.’* Like the 
captive Jews in Babylon, so these. strangers and pilgrims on 
the earth are to seek the peace of the cities of their sojourn- 
ing.} They will doubtless find much everywhere to condemn 
and deplore. But, be their judgment what it may respecting 
the form and structure and policy of the government, or the 
character of the rulers, no speculations of theirs about expe- 
‘diency or abstract justice, about self-evident truths or the 
rights of man, will justify them in originating, or codperating 
in, the cabals and conflicts of revolution ; nor is the obliga- 
tion to ‘render tribute to whom tribute is due, and custom to 
whom custom, ¢ in the least degree affected by any opinions 
they may entertain as to the wisdom and equity of the tax, 
or of the manner in which the public revenue is spent. The 
government itself may be a despotism, and both the king and 
his subordinates such monsters of almost superhuman wick- 
edness as were most of the Roman emperors ; even this will 
not release the members of Christ’s ‘little flock’§ from the 
duty of submission. They may then aspire to the crowns of 
martyrs, not of tyrannicides. Reverencing still the dark and 
distorted shadow of the Divine sovereignty—bearing meekly, 
and in the strength of their heavenly Lord, their own sharp 
and heavy cross—they will leave it to His all-controlling pro- 
vidence, and to outraged humanity, to redress the wrongs of 


* Heb, 12: 28; Prov. 24: 21. ἵ 7εὶ: 20 τ 
tT ROM. 123: ἢ. § Luke 12 : 32. 


Lecture XIII—Chapter 2 : 13-16. 145 


nations. And meanwhile they will not cease to pray ‘for 
kings and for all that are in authority ; that we may lead a 
quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty ;* and, 
in so far as the prayer may seem to be unavailing, they will 
only the more deeply sigh and groan within themselves for 
the coming of that Ruler over men who is ‘just, ruling in the 
fear of God. And He shall be as the light of the morning, 
when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the 
tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after 
rain. > 


3. The 15th verse brings into view still another reason for 
a careful compliance with the course prescribed. This in- 
offensive, dutiful behavior of Christians in regard even to 
heathen, and it might be hostile, governments, is presented 
as an important element in the plan of God for bringing His 
enemies and theirs, if not to a gracious repentance—the full, 
blessed result of Christian well-doing, at which the 12th verse 
points—at least to shame. ‘for so’—or thust— ts the will of 
God’—that highest law, which needs but to be made known 
to His children, at once to satisfy them as to the path of 
safety and honor; ‘¢hus zs the will of God, that with well- 
doing ’—literally, that doing wellS$—‘ye silence, or, according 
to the primary import of the word, suzzle,|| ‘the tgnorance of 
the** foolish men. As this desirable consequence may reason- 
ably be expected from a consistent Christian walk in all your 
social relations, so especially in that relation in which you are 
most exposed to heathen observation and jealousy—your rela- 
tion to the civil powers. 

It was, in fact, mainly in that relation that the primitive 
believers, as we had occasion to remark in the last Lecture,ff 


ἘΠῚ Lim. 2 Ὁ Ζὶ ft 2 Sam. 23 : 3; 4. t οὕτως. 8 ἀγαϑοποιοῦντας. 

| φιμοῦν. The metaphor (mistaken by Doddridge and others, who render it, ¢o 
bridle in, etc.) is retained in very many occasions, as cafistrare, einen Maulkorb 
anlegen, stop the mouth, etc. If there is any objection to mzz/e, (Dr. Brown’s 
word,) it is not.that it is too strong for the occasion, (though even Calvin thinks 
the original harsh from its novelty, propter novitatem dura,) but simply that, ex- 
cept when citing Deut. 25 : 4, (1 Cor.9:9; 1 Tim. 5 : 18,) the New Testament 
writers seem always elsewhere to use φιμοῦν in a secondary sense, (Matt. 22 : 12, 
34; Mark 1:25; 4:39; Luke 4: 35.) 

ἊΣ TOY, V., 12. tt See pp. 132, 133. 


146 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


found themselves very soon subjected to general misappre- 
hension and odium. Gathered at first in largest numbers 
from the temple and the synagogue, they were for some time 
naturally enough taken by their neighbors for nothing more 
than a fanatical Jewish sect, and, as such, they at once in- 
herited much of the suspicion, contempt, and hatred, with 
which the Jews themselves were regarded as a factious and 
turbulent race. By and by, however, these same sentiments 
burned even more fiercely against the Christians as Christians, 
as it came gradually to be understood, that the popular super- 
stitions and idolatries, and the savage intolerance and _ blas- 
phemy of the imperial power, were likely to encounter a far 
more formidable antagonist, than the sullen, stubborn, exclu- 
sive selfishness of Judaism, in the irrepressible life of the 
Church, with her energy of faith, her glowing zeal, her un- 
compromising steadfastness, her meek endurance, her para- 
mount and immeasurable devotion to the service and glory of 
‘one Jesus which was dead, whom she affirmed to be alive.’ * 
Then, indeed, began ‘the heathen to rage, and the people to 
imagine a vain thing. The kings of the earth set themselves, 
and the rulers took counsel together,’ against the persistent 
disturber of their unholy peace, the bold asserter of the pre- 
rogative of Him who was ‘higher than the highest,’ the over- 
turner of the altars of devils, the world-wide revolutionist of 
the ages, whom they learned daily more and more to dread in 
their tortured and bleeding, but still unconquered and ever- 
more unconquerable, Victim. So ‘foolish’—so senseless—so 
brutish—had men’s darkened hearts become.t And as their 
bloody hands, so also their slanderous tongues proclaimed 
their ‘zgnorance’ of the whole spirit and principles and ten- 
dency of Christianity, as the devout respecter,of ‘all that is 
called God or that is worshipped,’£ the firmest bond of social 
order, at once the gentlest and the mightiest friend of na- 
tions, as of individual man in every sphere and relation. 
Even the mild and philosophic Pliny, writing to the Emperor 
about the Christians of the very provinces to which our Epis-. 


SPACES I25): 10. Psil2 tI, 21: ccl.5 385 Rom eee 
ΤῚ 


, 
aihesss ΖΞ, 


Lecture X11I.—Chapter 2 : 13-16. 147 


tle was addressed, and within fifty years of its date, plainly in- 
timates that a close and severe scrutiny had not enabled him 
to discover in them any thing worthy of death, excepting only 
what he calls their headstrong and inflexible obstinacy ; but 
that, he certainly thought, ought to be punished.* Such was 
still the wisdom of men—the best and wisest of them. It 
was none the less foolishness with God; and the way, the 
Apostle tells us, in which, according to God’s will, this ‘2g70- 
rance of foolish men, mistaking heroic loyalty to Christ for 
self-willed disloyalty to Caesar, was to be overcome, or at any 
rate muzzled. and silenced, was through the beneficent lives 
of His maligned and persecuted children, and, in particular, 
their patient ‘ sbmission to every human institution. Need I 
remind you how that will of God, through the operation of 
His own truth and grace, has prevailed? Who now so igno- 
rant, or foolish, or shameless, as to assert or even pretend to 
believe, that a good Christian can be a bad citizen ? 


It only remains for us to notice the 16th verse, in which, 
as I understand it,f the believers are cautioned against a 


* ‘Neque enim dubitabam, qualecumque esset quod faterentur, pervicaciam 
certe et inflexibilem obstinationem debere puniri.’ 

+ The precise logical structure of vv. 13-17 cannot, perhaps, be determined 
with certainty. The following are the principal variations: 1. Chrysostom, 
CEcumenius, Estius, Gerhard, Bengel, Moldenhauer, Olshausen, De Wette, find a 
syntactical connection between ὑποτάγητε of v. 13 and ἐλεύϑεροι of v. 16; and 
for the same reason Dr. Schmidt, Griesbach, Knapp, Hahn, Bloomfield, Trollope, 
and others, put v. 15 into a parenthesis, 2. One independent period is formed 
out of vy. 15, 16 by (not the original edition of the English version, which, like 
many others, ends each of vv. 14-16 with a full stop) Tyndale, the Bishops’ Bible, 
the Dutch version, Erasmus, Calvin, Castalio, Piscator, Hammond, Seb. Schmidt, 
Wiesinger, Alford, and many others. 3. The same thing is done with vv. 16 (as 
the protasis) and 17 (as the apodosis) by Schirmer, Augusti, Meyer, Lachmann, 
Steiger, Jachmann, Brown, Huther ; of whom Lachmann and Brown also connect 
v. 15 with what precedes, while Schirmer makes it parenthetical. The last ar- 
rangement, as given by Lachmann and Brown, while it explains regularly (as does 
also the first) the nominatives of v. 16, (but on this point see p. 133, note I, on 
éyovrec of v. 12,) is recommended, as regards v. 15, by the double correspondence : 
ὅτι οὕτως ἐστὶ τὸ ϑέλημα τοῦ Θεοῦ--διὰ τὸν Κύριον, and ἀγαϑοποιοῦντας---ἀγαϑο- 
ποιῶν ; and, as regards ν, 16, by analogous constructions in this Epistle. Comp. 
ch- 1: 14, 15,22; ch. 2 : I, 2, 4, 5, 11. In this way, moreover, the truth is 
certainly brought out with great vividness, that Christian freedom best shows 
itself in ‘rendering to all their dues,’ (Rom. 13 : 7.) On the other hand, Wiesin- 


148 Lectures on the first Epistle of Peter. 


snare into which they were in some danger of falling ; and 
the same temptation has occasionally recurred in later periods 
of the Church. 

I have alluded to the Jewish impatience of the Roman 
yoke. Now, we may well suppose that this patriotic feeling 
was by no means extinguished in the Jewish Christians. 
Must it not rather in many instances have been strengthened 
by their faith in Jesus as the Messiah, who was to ‘restore 
again the kingdom to Israel’?* And you will also remem- 
ber that αὐ the Christians of that age, Gentile and Jewish 
alike, shared equally in the earnest expectation and hope of 
the speedy establishment on earth of that glorious kingdom, 
in which they too were to reign as kings and priests. Besides, 
‘where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty’—a sudden 
and marvellous enlargement and elevation of the human soul. 
How, then, shall the heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, 
bought as they have been with so great a price, be any longer 
‘the servants of men’? Nay, has not an Apostle expressly 
forbidden them so to be ? 7 Such, you perceive, was the snare ; 
and it is quite sufficient to account for the apparent anxiety 
with which the Apostles so often ‘put’ their brethren ‘in 
mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey 
magistrates.’ + 

But now mark the Divine wisdom and force with which 
Peter, in the present instance, sweeps it away: ‘As free’— 
yes, I gladly acknowledge your high standing as ‘the Lord’s 
freemen, § and I the more confidently appeal to you as such 
for an unreluctant compliance with what I have been saying. 
Think not that you will thus detract one jot or tittle from 
what I have conceded to be, and gloried in as being, your 
peculiar dignity as God’s ‘royal priesthood,’ (v. 9.) Submit 
yourselves, I say, not as slaves, but ‘as free, and not as having 


ger insists, not without force, that, without v. 16, v. 15 is deficient and bare ; that 
the evangelical freedom (v. 16) might be made a pretence for disregarding human 
authority, but not for violating some of the duties enjoined in v. 17; that ὡς 
δοῦλοι Θεοῦ is not a suitable motive for τὴν ἀδελφότητα ἀγαπᾶτε, and τὸν Θεὸν 
φοβξισϑε (Ὁ) ; and, finally, that τῆς κακίας points back to ἀγαϑοποιξιν, and ὡς 
δοῦλοι Θεοῦ to τὸ ϑέλημα τοῦ Θεοῦ. 

* Acts 1: 6, ᾿ ΖΘ ΟΣ αν», Rom-3 ΤΥ; Corse. 

ΤΙΣ Sir Cor, 9: 22. 


Lecture XI1Il—Chapter 2 : 13-16. 149 


that freedom for a covering of wickedness’*—so the clause 
may be rendered—‘ but as servants of God, + which you certainly 
feel no humiliation in claiming to be. Well, then, I have 
declared it to be ‘the will of God’ that ye thus submit your- 
selves. The civil powers are His ordinances, as well as man’s,” 
and you cannot resist them without incurring the guilt of a 
wickedness, which, so far from being covered, concealed, or 
excused, will indeed be vastly aggravated, by the pretence of 
your hich calling of God in Christ Jesus. The very freedom 
which you might be tempted to plead in opposition to my 
precept—in what does it consist but in your being ‘the ser- 
vants of God’? 


After so protracted a discussion, I must not, in conclusion, 
venture to dwell on the solemn and mournful interest which 
our subject derives from the current history of our times, and 
of our own afflicted land. Surely—surely—these can be no 
other than the perilous times of the last days, when men 
should despise dominion, being lovers of their own selves, 
covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, 
unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, 
false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are 
good, traitors, heady, high-minded, presumptuous, self-willed, 
not afraid to speak evilof dignities.¢ Let us all be on our guard 
against the infections of a pestilence that is limited by no lines 
of latitude or of longitude, or of political division ; which no 
bayonets, no bullets, can reach, and no blockade can confine. 
For, alas! it taints the atmosphere, is fast’ poisoning the very 


* kal μὴ ὡς ἐπικάλνμμα ἔχοντες τὴς κακίας τὴν ἐλευϑερίαν. The ὡς belongs, 
not to ἐπικάλυμμα, (Macknight and others,) but to the participle.—The article 
before ἐλευϑερίαν refers back to ἐλεύϑεροι.---Ἰ1 do not suppose that there is any 
allusion whatever in this verse to the cap ( p:/eus ) that was assumed by manumit- 
ted slaves, (Beza,) or to the white baptismal robe. (Corn, a Lapide.) But neither 
is ἐπικάλυμμα specifically a cloak, except in the secondary sense of the English 
word, as=cover. The verb ἐπικαλύπτω, like the noun itself, occurs but once in 
the New Testament, and there (Rom. 4: 7) it is in our version 70 cover.—The 
maliciousness, malice, of the old English versions (except the Bishops’, zaughtiness ) 
comes from the Vulgate ma/itiz, which, however, may have been used in its 
general, etymological sense of evil/ness, badness. 

ἱ δοῦλοι Θεοῦ. Tischendorf and Alford read Θεοῦ δοῦλοι (Sin. etc.) 

Ὁ ΖΝ Π. 3.2) 1 41; 20 bet 2epro me uders. 


150 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


blood of our age, and in our every household its breath is felt. 
As for those infatuated men who have risen up in red rebel- 
lion against a government, which, as against them, had 
sinned only in being too indulgent, standing here in the hight 
of the Apostolic teaching, we may well be appalled at the 
unparalleled ‘ wickedness’ of their enterprise—which may God 
confound! But neither will I, speaking as the minister of 
Him who perished on Calvary at the hands of those, whom, 
having lived to bless, He even died to save, forbear to add: 
‘Father, forgive them ; for they know not what they do.’* 


* Luke 23 : 34. 


LECTURE XIV. 


YO PELE ἡ ΣῈ: 
‘Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king.’ 


‘Tus, says Leighton, ‘is a precious cluster of Divine pre- 
cepts. The whole face of the heavens is adorned with stars, 
but they are of different magnitudes, and in some parts they 
are thicker set than in others: thus is it likewise in the holy 
Scriptures. . . . Here is a constellation of very bright stars 
near together.’ 


The last of these precepts, ‘ Yonor the king, seems plainly 
to imply that the writer has still chiefly in his mind the poli- 
tical duty of Christians, as inculcated in the four preceding 
verses. What is not so obvious is the bearing on that topic 
of the rest of this verse, and the mutual relation of its several 
parts. “My own impression is, that the Apostle is here anti- 
cipating objections that might be felt, if not expressed, by his 
brethren to the spirit and tenor of the previous exhortation, 
and that, in doing so, he further explains and defines the ex- 
hortation itself.* 

‘What!’ they might think, ‘submit ourselves, we the heirs 
of the everlasting kingdom, to these wicked idolaters and 
persecutors, who fear not God, neither regard man,f but live 


* Alford makes the first precept a general one, which is then immediately split 
up in this verse into three divisions, and the influence of which reaches as far as 
ch. 3: 7. Besides other objections to this, it can scarcely be that Θεόν is merged 
in πάντας, (which Alford himself translates a// men ;) nor does this view satisfac- 
torily account for the distinctions of the other clauses, or for the prominence as- 
signed in the last clause to the political obligation. ' 

telbuke 18°22. 


152 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


apparently for no other end than to insult and defy the one, 
and degrade and oppress the other, while the special object 
of their jealous and relentless fury is the dear Church of our 
Lord! How shall we submit ourselves to their authority, 
without at the same time becoming partakers of their sins ? 
Must not any attempt on our part to satisfy their demands, 
and so avert their wrath, prove a strong temptation to, if it 
does not necessitate, a corresponding abatement of what we 
owe in far closer and more sacred relations? Nay, shall we 
not rather do well to detest and despise these enemies of all 
that is good, and, though now forced in our weakness to an 
outward obedience, do what we safely may to thwart and 
humble the tyrants, while we lie in wait for the first fair op- 
portunity to burst their yoke from our necks, and beat them 
down with the fragments ?’ 

‘No, says Peter, in reply, as I suppose, to these unex- 
pressed, but very probable, remonstrances and rebellious 
surgings of a natural resentment ; ‘what is demanded of you 
in regard to your civil rulers in no degree conflicts with your 
other obligations. Nor, were you even so disposed, would 
you be at liberty to exaggerate in your own conception the. 
former claim, so as in the least to invalidate or impair any 
one of the latter. Be the spirit and practices of others toward 
you and your brethren what they may, no provocation of 
theirs, no evil example however general, no command from 
whatever source, will justify you in stifling or concealing the 
purer and nobler principles and sentiments of the Christian 
calling. While, therefore, I have been thus explicit and ear- 
nest in requiring your submission to every human institution, 
I now with equal distinctness and emphasis say: Honor all 
men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Indeed, a little re- 
flection only is needful to find in these very injunctions both 
reasons for, and the necessary conditions of, the political 
course already prescribed, and to which I again point you, 
when, in perfect harmony with these supreme and unques- 
tioned laws of the heart and life, I add, ‘ Honor the king. 

It is true that, as the verse appears in our English Testa- 
ment, it might seem rather to consist of so many distinct and 
independent statutes, having no living connection one with 


Lecture XI V.—Chapter 2:17. 153 


another. But, besides that the interpretation of Scripture is 
never to be determined by the punctuation, it may be men- 
tioned in passing, that in this case most editions of the Greek 
text and many versions avoid our punctuation by periods. 
That in the mind of the writer there did exist some such con- 
nection as I have sought to indicate between the several 
parts of the verse, as well as between the whole verse and 
the previous context, will perhaps become more obvious as 
we briefly glance at the clauses separately. 


‘ Honor all’—not, all governors, as it has been sometimes 
explained,* nor even, as Bengel, all to whom honor is due,t 
but, simply, as in our version, all men. And the same lati- 
tude is’ probably to be given to Paul’s word in Rom. 13: 7, 
‘Render therefore to all their dues.’ There zs something due 
from us to every man, irrespectively altogether of his worldly 
circumstances, and of his intellectual or even his moral cha- 
racter. The debt may not be, as in the case of our rulers 
and superiors, one of tribute or custom or fear. But it does 
in every case include a love of benevolence, and the doing 
good unto all men, as we have opportunity,t and the senti- 
ment, moreover, of a respectful consideration. At this time 
the great majority of human beings was neglected and de- 
spised by the wise and learned, as well as dishonored and op- 
pressed by the rich and powerful and governing classes. It 
was the utterance of a new spirit, when Christ’s Apostles 
proclaimed to God’s redeemed children, the excellent of the 
earth, the duty of ‘honoring all men’—all sorts and condi- 
tions of men. They may have made themselves vile by their 
vices ; yea, vile in their own eyes. The poor drunkard, skulk- 
ing at first from the observation of his neighbors, and all the 
while secretly hoping and resolving by a rigorous self-denial 
to recover his former position in society, finds by and by,* 
after multiplied failures, that he has lost likewise his self-re- 
spect, and then, alas! he seeks refuge from the hot and bitter 
scorn of his own heart in the very delirium of renewed and 


* Hensler. + Quibus honos debetur.’ And so Bloomfield, etc. 
+ Gal. 6: Io. 


. 


154 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


continuous excess. Even so, however, there is still that in 
him, which is rightfully entitled to honor from us. He is still 
a man—a partaker of the royal nature, which in its beginning 
was the image and reflection of the Divine—to redeem which 
from sin and misery the blood of God’s Son was not too dear 
a price—and which now, in the person of that Son, has been 
‘caught up unto God, and to His throne.’* With feelings of 
reverence and awe the traveller gazes, not only on the crumb- 
ling shrine and hallowed dust of Iona, but on the ruins, ac- 
cursed and hopeless though they be, of wicked Nineveh and 
proud Babylon. But here is a ruin in which God once dwelt, 
and in which He desires yet again, and eternally, to dwell. 
Surely it is not for those whom grace, and grace alone, has 
saved from a like degradation, to insult over the desolation, 
or even to pass it by with indifference. ‘ Honor all men’—if 
not for what they have made themselves, at least for what the 
Creator and Redeemer designed them to be. Honor that 
kindly thought of God toward them by striving, as best you 
may, for its realization. And, when all your efforts seem to 
‘prove abortive, still honor it, and the objects of it, by your 
iprayers and tears. 


‘This precept of universal application is immediately fol- 
lowed by one of a more specific and limited character, ‘ Love 
the brotherhood’+—that smaller, select community, to which 
also you belong, not as men, but as Christians—your breth- 
ren ‘after the Spirit ’t{—begotten of the same Father, and to 
the same inheritance, and meanwhile laboring with you under 
the same burden of the cross. Let not the fact that they are 
hated by the world and the world’s rulers affect your feelings 
toward them, except, indeed, as it should deepen your sym- 
pathy, and stimulate your zeal in their behalf. In your re- 
quired submission to civil magistrates, you must beware of 
even seeming to side with them against Christ’s cause and 
people. His friends are your brethren. Own them, and love 


SORE Veal 2 δ: 
+ ἀδελφότης. In the New Testament this word occurs only here and ch. 5 : 9. 
¢ Gal. 4 : 29. 


Lecture XIV—Chapter 2: 17. 155 


them, as such, and shrink not from identifying yourselves 
with them in all their interests. 

Considering, therefore, this clause also in its relation to the 
immediate context, we can perceive a special propriety in its 
abrupt reénforcement of what had already been formally 
enjoined in ch. 1: 22: ‘Having purified your souls in the 
obedience of the truth unto brotherly love unfeigned, out of a 
pure heart love one another intensely.’ 


And so the writer had already (ch. 1: 17) called on those 
who claim for their Father the impartial Judge of every man, 
to ‘walk, during the time of their sojourning, in fear.’ But it 
is not simply a repetition of the same thought, in the shape 
of a random, isolated ejaculation, when here again he says, 
‘Fear God. Rather he would remind us that this is ‘ the be- 
ginning of wisdom’ in all human relations—the central sun of 
the entire circuit of moral obligation, shedding influence all 
around. Fearing God, we shall honor ‘men, which are made 
after the similitude of God.’* Fearing God, we shall love 
those on whom God has set His love, and to whom He has 
more closely allied us by adopting them with us into His own 
family, and giving to all the Holy Spirit, the earnest of the 
common inheritance. And finally, fearing God, we shall ‘onor 
the king’—all whom God has raised, as His representatives 
and vicegerents, to the high places of earthly rule. 


᾿νε are thus brought back to the main topic of the present 
section, (vs. 13-17,) to wit, the duty of Christians to magis- 
trates, the other clauses of the verse, as now explained, being 
intended to remove certain probable difficulties in the way of 
the hearty discharge of that duty, by quietly suggesting the 
needful cautions and limitations, as well as additional motives. 
You will observe that of the various feelings here men- 
tioned, honor, love, fear, it is, so to speak, the undermost and 
broadest, that is selected as appropriate to the political rela- 
tion. ‘My son, fear thou God and the king,’ is, indeed, one 
of the words of the wise.t But, as distinguished in our text 


* Ps, I11: 10; James 3:9. ἤτον 22 9 9) eR 21: 
PA > 


156 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


from honor, fear is that sacred, religious awe in the presence 
of infinite perfection and supreme authority, which, carrying 
with it the sense of immediate and absolute subjection and 
dependence, is due from us to no creature that God has 
made. In the same sense, and with the same exclusive appli- 
cation, is the word used by our Lord: ‘I say unto you, my 
friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after 
that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn 
you whom you shall fear: Fear Him, which after He hath 
killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear 
Him.’* Does it not sound somewhat like an echo of that 
solemn voice, when one of those who heard it says, ‘ Fear 
God; honor the king’? ‘ Fear God, and therefore ‘ honor the 
king. ‘Honor the king, but ‘fear God’ Let no earthly dig- 
nity, not even the highest, stand for a moment in your eyes as 
in any case, or under any circumstances, the equal or rival of 
that which is Divine. The will of God is your law. Where 
He sends you, go; what He commands you, do; though all 
the tyrants of earth set themselves in threatening array 
against you. Will not God’s smile compensate for their 
frowns? But in His frown what will their smiles avail ? 

Again ; ‘Love the brotherhood . . . honor the king’ If the 
king himself belong to the brotherhood of Christian faith, you 
will then, of course, likewise love him as a brother. But even 
now, while that is impossible, and is not asked of you, you 
are nevertheless, were it only for the sake of the brotherhood, 
and that you may not aggravate their sorrows, to beware how 
you needlessly incur the suspicion, and provoke the wrath, of 
the civil power. An idolater he may be, or a blaspheming 
persecutor of the Church of God; still ‘onor the king, 
Honor him, as you honor all men, as a man. Honor him also 
as king. But neither, as between him and your brethren, are 
you to carry your deference to royalty so far, as to withdraw 
from them your love, or to suppress its manifestation. ‘ Honor 
the king, but ‘love the brotherhood ;’ yea, ‘lay down your lives 
for the brethren.’ 

And lastly: ‘Honor all men... honor the king. Recog- 


* Luke 12 : 4, 5. + 1 John 3: 16. 


Lecture XIV. —Chapter 2:17. 157 


nizing the fitness and equity of the former requisition, you 
cannot, be your experience what it may of bitter wrong from 
your rulers, deny the reasonableness of the latter, when to the 
claim of a common humanity is added that of a Divine ordi- 
nance.—A similar connection of thought may exist in 1 Tim. 
I: I, 2, where the writer, just after ‘exhorting that, first of all, 
supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be 
made for all men,’ specifies the single class of magistrates on 
account of their great influence in human affairs, and also, 
perhaps, because this was the very class likeliest at that time 
to be excluded from the sympathies of the Church: ‘be made 
for all men ; for kings, and for all that are in authority ; that 
we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and ho- 
nesty. So here: ‘ Honor all men... honor the king. 

And here, too, observe, we may, as in the other instances, 
change the order and relation of the two clauses, thus : ‘Honor 
the king, and ‘honor all men.’ See that you never so per- 
vert or strain the former obligation, as to hold yourselves 
released from the latter. For those who have stood believ- 
ingly before the cross, the value of a man must not be 
eclipsed by the splendor of earth’s brightest diadem. Nor 
can even imperial power so depress and strip the meanest 
slave, as to leave him ‘no rights which you are bound to re- 
spect. Alas, for that basest utterance that ever fell, I think, 
from judicial lips! Were that, indeed, the true reading of 
our country’s Constitution, and not the frightfullest calumny 
on it, then would earth and heaven shout together in scornful . 
triumph over its destruction. 


But on the other hand, my hearers, you will allow me to 
add, that it will be well for us, in this day of our calamity, no 
longer to strive to hide from ourselves and from one another, 
what is only too apparent to all the world beside ; that this 
nation’s great, crying—God grant that it be not fatal—sin has 
been its cruel, persistent disregard of the very first of the 
precepts that we have been considering. We have not ‘ ov- 
ored all men.’ In unblushing defiance and mockery of our 
own declared and much boasted self-evident principles, mil- 
lions of men—whole generations of men—every individual of 


158 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


them as human as Washington himself, have been—oh! 
how dishonored, contemned, abused, trampled on, shut out 
from the blessed light of knowledge, and from all the securi- 
ties and sanctities of marriage and home, bought and sold 
and worked and driven with the cattle of the field ; yea, 
crushed down, the poor dumb immortals, so far as legal craft 
and brute force could do it, to the level of the beasts that 
perish. What though the victims of such a system were 
clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every 
day? None the less should it be, to every man that has a 
man’s heart within him, a thing abhorred, as ‘ earthly, sen- 
sual, devilish.* And yet you do all know, that of late years 
this same system of outrageous wrong has domineered in 
this nation, in church and state and society, and that at the 
North scarcely less than in the South, until it had come to 
be almost universally regarded as one of the very best crite- 
rions of a man’s prudence and fitness for honorable station in 
any sphere of life, that, if he could not fully and openly sym- 
pathize with the transcendent wickedness, he should at least 
have no difficulty in holding his tongue about it. Or, if he 
broke silence at all, it must be in denouncing the madness of 
the abolitionists, and the heresy of the higher law; whereas 
at one time these were really the only signs left to us, that on 
this subject the national conscience was not dead. No; there 
was one other such sign given, in the growing toleration of a 
bastard, infidel philosophy, with its sham proofs that the negro 
was rather a monkey than a man. The establishment of that 
point, it did seem still to be felt, was necessary, as Montes- 
quieu long ago suggested,} to our own reputation. 

And can you wonder, brethren, if God had not finally cast 
us off, and resolved on our ruin, that even His patience would 
endure this state of things no longer? You will not, Iam 
sure, question my loyalty, though I should venture to tell you, 
that, while standing in awe of the Divine Presence in this 


* James 3: I5. 

+ Del LEsprit des Loix, xv. 5: ‘Il est impossible que nous supposions que ces 
gens-la soient des hommes ; parceque si nous les supposions des hommes, on 
commencerait a croire que nous ne sommes pas nous-méme Chrétiens.’ 


Lecture XLV —Cheficr 2:17. 159 


rebellion—for doubtless God zs in it, as well as Satan—I can 
yet at times rejoice with trembling that the great explosion 
has come. It needed, as I believe, but a few more years of 
uninterrupted sunshine in our old courses, to have corrupted. 
and destroyed the nation beyond the reach of remedy. And 
now, all other milder remedies having failed, posterity will not 
reckon even these slaughtered thousands and lavished millions 
too much to have paid for her extrication, so it be thorough 
and perpetual, from the Dismal Swamp of iniquity and shame. 
Then, at Jast, let us fondly hope, the North having been 
cleared of its negro-cars and negro-pews, as well as the South 
of its whips and chains, the noble principles of the Declara- 
tion of Independence will receive their nobler embodiment 
and first historical illustration in all classes of this great 
land’s teeming population ; and then too there will be.less 
difficulty in understanding, and less risk in practising, the 
apostolic precept : ‘Hozor all men.’ 

In the mean time, let us not fail to remark, as a signal in- 
stance of the way in which sin ever reacts to its own punish- 
ment, how the national violation of the one law, ‘ Honor all 
men, has ended in this wide-spread violation of the other, 
‘ Honor the king” The government, which dishonored man- 
hood in the slave, is now itself dishonored by the slaveholder. 
For the whole case, as I understand it, may be summed up 
in these few words. Yes; the Jacob and Esau of American 
history—the hostile twins, liberty and slavery, which in the 
beginning strove with each other in the nation’s womb—have 
now, after a long and hollow truce, met face to face, full- 
grown and full-armed both, and, in the presence of all the 
wondering kings and peoples, have closed in deadly grapple. 
For that, I again repeat, let every patriot praise God. While 
the struggle lasts, we have at least the comfortable assurance, 
that slavery and this government can never more be, or seem 
to be, friends. And shall it not be the prayer of all that, 
when the struggle is ended, the sun, as he looks down from 
his high path in heaven, over this fair, broad land, may descry 
no single slave in all our coasts ? 


LECTURE ye 


1 PETER 2: 18-20. 


‘ SERVANTS, be subject to your masters with all fear ; not only to the good and 
gentle, but also to the froward. For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience 
toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if, when ye 
be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, 
and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. 


THESE verses in the original maintain a structural connec- 
tion with what precedes, and are, in fact, but a further devel- 
opment of that comely walk, or good behavior, among the 
Gentiles, which had been prescribed in the 12th verse, and 
which was largely to consist in a cheerful, conscientious 
submission to every human institution, (v. 13.)* The general 
principle is here applied to a particular class of the Christian 
brotherhood ; one, it is probable, very numerous in the 
apostolic churches, and which, at least, comes into frequent 
prominence in the apostolic writings ; the class, namely, of 
‘servants, or, according to the derivation of the wordt that 


Peter employs, domestics. 


* To the common explanation of the participle as being here used for the im- 
perative mood, one is not quite reconciled by having the anomaly called a He- 
braism, (Hensler, Pott.) Nor, however convenient in translation, is there any 
real necessity for this exegetical shift. Ὑποτασσόμενοι is made dependent on v. 
17 by Hottinger and De Wette; but the better connection (and the remark is 
equally applicable to the participles and adjectives of ch. 3 : 1, 7-9) is with ὑπο- 
τάγητέ of v. 13, (Cocceius, Bengel, Burton, Huther,) or say rather, with vv. 11-1 3; 
(Steiger, Wiesinger.) Comp. ch. 4 : 8, note 5, and Winer, p. 399, etc. 

t 1 Cor. 7 : 20-24; 12:13; Gal. 3:28; Eph. 6: 5-8; Col. 3: 11, 22-25; 
I Tim. 6: 1, 2; Tit. 2:9, 10; Philemon. 

ft οἰκέτης, from οἶκος, a house, or household. ence in Acts 10 : 7 our version 
has household servants, though perhaps members of the household might there be 
the safer interpretation. 


Lecture XV—-Chapter 2 : 18-20. 161 


Now, while it is true that neither the etymology of the 
term, nor its usage, requires us to say* that this class in the 
present instance consisted altogether of slaves, yet, on the 
other hand, taking into account, not only what I believe to be 
the prevailing usage,t but the known constitution of society 
in that age, together with the whole spirit and tenor of the 
counsels that follow, and comparing these with the parallel 
ones in Paul’s Epistles, we shall find little reason to doubt 
that slaves formed the great majority of those to whom the 
Apostle here addresses himself. It is quite certain that 
slaves at this time abounded, and that their general condi- 
tion was depressed and miserable in the extreme. By the 
law they were refused all personal recognition, and expressly 
classed with dead things and quadrupeds.t Society equally 
excluded them from its sympathy and care. The power of 
the master was absolute and unquestioned, even to the arbi- 
trary infliction of the most cruel punishments, and of death 
itself; and it needs no historical testimony to assure us, that 
-such a power was continually and most wantonly abused. In 
fact, this same chattel-slavery and its inevitable concomitants, 
as they were one of the darkest and foulest features of the 
corrupt and declining Empire, were no less one main source 
of its weakness and peril and ultimate ruin. 

Meanwhile, however, the grace of God had appeared among 
men, and by nothing did Christianity more clearly attest her 
heavenly origin, than when she turned her holy eye of love 
upon the slave, and, taking him by the hand, sat down beside 
him, and pressed him to her heart. Then, indeed, of these 
benighted outcasts from the protection and charities of the 
world it might be said, and with a double emphasis: ‘The 
people which sat in darkness saw great light ; and to them 
which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung 


’ 


up. The Apostles, I think, had them chiefly in mind, when 


* With Augusti, Stolz, Meyer, De Wette, Davidson, etc. 

t See, for example, Sept. Gen. 9 : 25, 26, where [παῖς] oikétn¢=p 7449 Tay 5 
Esdr. 3 : 19, where it stands in opposition to ἐλεύϑερος, free; the section περὶ 
δούλων in Sir. 20, [33,] etc. 

t ‘Pro nullis, pro mortuis, pro quadrupedibus’—such was their legal estima- 
tion. 


162 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


they magnified the Christian calling as especially reaching 
and blessing the foolish, weak, and base things of the world, 
and things which are despised, and things which are not. 
God had ‘chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and 
heirs of the kingdom.’ And so the slaves of men became 
the ‘ Lord’s freemen.’ * 

But now, in these circumstances, there would readily arise 
in the mind of the slave himself certain doubts and questions. 
‘ How is this great change to affect my present temporal 
relations? Must I, a child of God, a fellow-citizen with the 
saints, and of ‘the household of faith,’ born to glory, and 
honor, and immortality, remain still in bondage to this blind, 
brutal heathen, himself the bondman of Satan? True, I as 
yet see no way of escape from my ignominious thraldom ; 
but can my conscience any longer acknowledge the obliga- 
tion of service? Certainly, were my master too a Christian, 
I might then, with no less safety than propriety, assert in the 
family an equality that is on all hands conceded in the 
Church, where there is neither bond nor free.’ 

The temptation, you perceive, was as to its root identical 
with that which, as we formerly saw,} beset the primitive be- 
liever in the discharge of his duty as a citizen. And by 
many even now the present case of conscience would not be 
reckoned quite free from difficulty. 

Some, indeed, there are in our day, and they too such as 
seek to figure in the front rank of reformers and philanthro- 
pists, who see no difficulty at all in the case. To the Roman, 
as to the American, slave they would have said: ‘Why do 
you hesitate? Your tyrant master has been robbing you all 
your life, and has no rightful claim whatever on you or your 
services. Seize, then, the very first opportunity that offers, if 
not of avenging your many wrongs, at least of asserting and 
vindicating your natural right of freedom, If necessary to your 
escape, take, without scruple, your master’s horse, or any other 
property belonging to him, and which, as being the fruit of 
your unrequited toil, is rather yours than his. Nay, should 


* Matt. 4: 165 1 Cor. f: 27, 238; 7223 James 2:5. 
ἵ See pp. 148, 151-2. 


Lecture XV—Chapter 2: 18-20. 163 


he surprise you in the midst of your preparations, or overtake 
you in your flight, and still attempt to hold you by force, 
then, in the last resort, make full proof of your manhood, 
and of your fitness for freedom, by laying the oppressor dead 
at your feet.’ 

Now, such an expression as this of the impulses of the 
natural mind may sound very fine and brave. At any rate, it 
is, as I have said, the advice which some of our philanthro- 
pists would have given. Yet, after all, it will be found to 
savor of the will of the flesh, not the mind of Christ. And 
so, when this point has been reached, as one of the last and 
purest developments of anti-slavery zeal and magnanimity, as 
well as of our grand modern revolutionary gospel of liberty 
and equality, it is no more than consistent that the Bible 
should be quietly dropped, and sometimes even vauntingly 
discarded as rather a poor, mean-spirited affair. For indeed, 
brethren, it can in no wise be denied or concealed, that the 
advice given in this book to slaves by the wisdom and the 
. love of God was the direct opposite of all that. Let us hear 
Paul: 

‘Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was 
called. Art thou called being a servant? care not for it: but 
if thou mayest be made free, use it rather ’—that is, as now 
commonly understood: If you can in a lawful way obtain your 
freedom, do so, rather than remain a slave. But the older ex- 
planation, adopted also by several of the best modern interpre- 
ters, makes Paul say: Even in that case, you will do better in 
present circumstances, and for the credit of the Gospel, by con- 
tinuing as you are.* ‘ For he that is called in the Lord being 
a servant, is the Lord’s freeman ; likewise also he that is call- 
ed, being free, is Christ’s servant. Ye are bought with a price ; 
be not ye the servants of men. Brethren, let every man, where- 
in he is called, therein abide with God. . . . Servants, be obedi- 
ent to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with 
fear and trembling ’—it is no cowardly, servile dread, however, 
that the Apostle inculcates, but a conscientious religious anx- 


* This view is ably defended by Alford ; and perhaps the question must be re- 
garded as somewhat doubtful. 


164 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


iety to do their duty *—‘in singleness of your heart, as unto 
Christ ; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers ; but as the ser- 
vants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; with 
good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men: know- 
ing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall 
he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. . . . Ser- 
vants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh ;’ 
that is, in all lawful things; in all things not forbidden by 
the higher law of God; as is sufficiently evident by what fol- 
lows: ‘not with eye-service, as men-pleasers ; but in single- 
ness of heart, fearing God: and whatsoever ye do, do it hearti- 
ly, as to the Lord, and not unto men; knowing that of the 
Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye 
serve the Lord Christ. . . . Let as many servants as are un- 
der the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor’— " 
that is, of all the respect and obedience that belong to them 
as masters—‘ that the name of God and His doctrine be not 
blasphemed,’ evil-spoken of, as encouraging insubordination 
in families. ‘And they that have believing masters, let them 
not despise them, because they are brethren ’—in other words, 
let them not presume, on the ground of the new relation of 
Christian brotherhood, to treat their masters or their com- 
mands with a bold, contemptuous indifference— but rather 
do them service, because they who receive the benefit’ of this 
improved service ‘are faithful and beloved.t These things 
teach and exhort. . . . Exhort servants to be obedient unto 
their own masters, and to please them well in all things ; not 
answering again; not purloining, but showing all good fideli- 
ty ; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in 
all things.’ t In beautiful accordance, too, with these uniform 
teachings of the Apostle was his own conduct, in sending 
back the fugitive but now believing Onesimus to the service 
and brotherly confidence and love of his Christian master, 
Philemon. 

There is, then, no mistaking the spirit and general drift of 


9 Sie 18 (Cole 2: 2; ΡΗΠ 2: 15 aie, 
+ The true construction of the original. 
t See the references, p. 160, note f. 


Lecture XV.—Chapter 2 : 18-20. 165 


what Paul says on this subject; and I have recited it at length, 
as furnishing the best illustration and confirmation of Peter’s 
corresponding instructions in the passage before us. 

‘ Ve servants, be subject’—or, as in v. 13 and often elsewhere, 
submit yourselves— in all fear to your masters. * That this 
fear, however, was not to be, as I said before, any vulgar, 
slavish apprehension, but rather such a serious earnestness 
and solicitude as must ever attend a deep religious sense of 
responsibility to God, is obvious from the whole tone of the 
address, and from the fact that the feeling is required in all 
cases alike—even in those where there was no danger of harsh 
treatment. And, you must again take notice, that this essen- 
tial quality of Christian submission to our earthly superiors 
carries with it also the necessary limitation of the submission 
itself, It must be such a submission as does not confiict with 
a supreme, controlling fear of God. But then mark likewise, 
that this is the only limitation. ‘ Not only,’ says Peter, ‘zo 
the good and gentle’—and doubtless there were such masters 
then, as there are now; whether their better character was 
owing to natural temperament, or to the influence of Chris- 
tian principle and Divine grace—‘ buzz,’ adds the Apostle, ‘also 
to the froward, or, as the word 15,7 the crooked, perverse. And 
then, on this latter case, as being the more difficult of the two, 
he dwells at length in what immediately follows. 

‘ For this is thankworthy, tf for conscience toward God one’ 
—any one, servant or other—‘endureth griefs, suffering un- 
justly. ~ The supposition includes three conditions—unjust 
suffering ; the patient endurance of it ; and.that ‘for conscience 


* Οἱ οἰκέται, ὑποτασσύμενοι ἐν παντὶ φόβῳ (Sin. : ἐν παντὶ φόβῳ bor.) τοῖς δεσ- 
πόταις, (Sin, adds ὑμῶν.) In such a case the English pronoun may be regarded 
as an idiomatic equivalent for the Greek article. So our version at ch. 3 : 1, 7, 
etc. By the Syriac, οἱ οἰκέται is taken absolutely: And those servants that are 
among you; by Erasmus, Calvin, and a few others, as the nominative to ἔστωσαυ 
understood: Let servants be, etc. 

t+ σκολιός. : 

t εἰ διὰ ovveidnow Θεοῦ ὑποφέρει τὶς λύπας, πάσχων ἀδίκως. The indicative 
mood suggests the case as not merely a possible, but an actual one. Comp. ch. 
4: 14.—The plural, g7zefs, occurs in our version, Is. 53 : 4, and even in the sense 
here intended, =g7#evances, is common in our older literature, nor is it yet obso- 
lete.—The only instance of ἀδίκως in the New Testament. The adjective is 
always, in our version, ws77ghteous or unjust. 


166 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


toward God, or from a sense of God’s providential control in 
human affairs, and a regard to God’s will, approbation, and 
glory.* 

It is not, therefore, any hypocritical, or timid, or simply 
prudent submission to wrong, that is here commended ; not 
the fawning obsequiousness that would seem to take delight 
in its own degradation, nor yet a sullen yielding to what is 
inevitable, nor the passive resignation of despair, nor even the 
fortitude of a stoical heroism ; but the thoughtful, meek, un- 
resenting, unrevengeful patience of Christian faith and hope ; 
the patience of a soul that ‘endures, because it ‘sees Him 
who is invisible, and converses with that which is eternal, 
and so loses the sense of the present smart and shame in the 
consciousness of a loyal, filial obedience, and in the anticipa- 
tions of coming deliverance and a glorious reward.t What- 
ever befals such a soul—however for the time not joyous, but 
erievous—and from whatever quarter the trial proceeds ; 
whether from the fire of God, or a great wind from the wil- 
derness, or the sword of the Chaldeans, or the tongue of Shi- 
mei, or any other manifestation of ‘man’s inhumanity to 
man’ t{—the believing heart accepts, yea, welcomes it, as in 
all its forms the allotment of an all-wise, almighty, loving Fa- 
ther, and as part of its own needful preparation for the final 
rest. The Apostle would have his poor brethren arm them- 
selves with this overcoming power, and to all ‘the slings and 
arrows of outrageous fortune’§ oppose the shield of faith. 
Their sufferings might be no less unjust than they were se- 
vere. But so much the more illustrious would be their vic- 
tory, and so much greater their ‘fame in ‘heaven,’|| and the 
joy of their eternal recompense. The endurance in sucha 
spirit of such sufferings is, says our text, ‘ thankiworthy,’ or, ac- 
cording to the margin, ¢thank.** 

It cannot certainly be meant that any claim of merit is 
thus established on the Divine favor, though Roman Catholic 


* Comp. the phrase συνείδησιν Θεοῦ with the Greek of ch. 3: 21; Luke 6: 12; 
Ron. Toren Cores. δ᾽:}7, 

Τρ σε τ, 18. 

1 Burns. § Shakespeare, || Milton. 

** See Luke 6 : 32-34; which Peter, Bengel thinks, had in his mind. 


Lecture XV.—Chapter 2 : 18-20. 167 


writers have sometimes been willing to interpret the word in 
that sense.* But Peter had not forgotten that caution of his 
Master: ‘So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those 
things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable 
servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.’ 
The expression he employs is the very common one ff so often 
rendered grace, and so it is here likewise explained by some: 
This is grace—a gift, or notable effect, of grace§ Perhaps, 
however, this is equally to strain the matter in the opposite 
direction. The true idea, I doubt not, is brought out in the 
next verse, where the very same word is translated by acceft- 
able. The statement then is, that the patient endurance, for 
the sake of God, of injustice at the hands of men, however it 
may be misunderstood and despised by the world, is.in the 
sight of heaven a grateful, acceptable thing—a sacrifice of a 
sweet-smelling savor. 

In the 20th verse this statement is still further enforced, 
and applied to the case on hand. That verse might be given 
thus: ‘For what credit || is it, if, when ye do wrong and are 
buffeted,** ye shall bear it patiently? but if, when ye do well 
and suffer, ye shall bear +t} it patiently, this is an acceptable 
thing with God ;’ with God, it is here added, as if to make 
clear and certain what was meant before ; zwzt God, however 
your noble humility may be overlooked, however it may be 
scorned, by those around you; z7ztz God, who knows all your 
sorrows, and counts all your tears, and will not forget the re- 


* Nic, de Lyra: opus supererogationis ; Martini: cosa di merito. 

+ Luke 17 : Io. : 

f χάρις. 

§ A suggestion of Corn, a Lapide, Er. Schmidt, Cocceius, Gill, Scott, Jach- 
mann, etc. 

|| kAgog—one of the many words peculiar to Peter among the New Testament 
writers, 

** ἁμαρτάνοντες καὶ κολαφιζόμενοι. The primary meaning of the first verb, 
as of the corresponding Hebrew one, (s27,) is ta mss the mark ; and so ‘wrong 


is merely wrung, or wrested from the right or ordered line of conduct,’ (Tooke, 
cited by Richardson.) 

it ὑπομενεῖτε, in both clauses. There is here a curious agreement among the 
versions to disregard the time ; only three or four out of a large number that I 
have consulted, retaining the future in both instances. Our translators seem to 
have followed Erasmus: suffervtis... suffertis. 


168 Lectures on the Farst Epistle of Peter. 


verence and love, which amidst them all ye ‘show toward His 
name ;’* with God, whose favor is dearer far to you than 
aught besides, and whose judgment alone shall stand. Pa- 
tiently to bear a deserved punishment is, indeed, of itself a 
becoming thing; but one which ordinary human nature can 
understand, attain to, and sympathize with. It is not, there- 
fore, so very wonderful, and can look for no special acknow- 
ledgment from God or man. But to bear violent and repeated 
injustice patiently is altogether a higher strain—such as can 
spring only from ‘ conscience toward God’—a conscience en- 
lightened by the truth, and quickened and fortified by the 
motives, of the everlasting Gospel. Chief among these mo- 
tives is the example of Christ Himself ; which, accordingly, is 
brought out in glowing relief in the remaining verses of the 
chapter, and which it will be well for us to reserve for sepa- 
rate, future consideration. 


In the mean time, you will notice that our first conclusion, 
with regard to the servile condition of those here addressed, 
is amply confirmed by what is said of the rude and cruel 
treatment to which they were exposed, and to which the 
Apostle counsels them to submit. Allow me, therefore, in 
conclusion, to add a few general remarks explanatory of what 
I conceive to be the New Testament way of looking at this 
whole sad subject of slavery, as it affects ourselves. I am 
well aware of the hazard of such an attempt. Our ears have 
been so long accustomed to extreme statements and passion- 
ate invective from all sides of the controversy, that one who 
refuses resolutely to pronounce either the shzbboleth of the 
one party, or the szbdoleth of the other, is very apt to incur 
suspicion and denunciation from both. However, the Lord 
is our Judge, and His word our law. We are not likely, I 
think, in this matter or any other, to discover for ourselves 
either a higher morality, or a more exquisite prudence, than 
that of Christ and His Apostles. ‘To the law,’ then, ‘and to 
the testimony.’ ἡ 

I. Now, in the first place, the Bible itself has, you know, 


* Heb. 6: 10. t Is. ὃ : 20. 


Lecture X V—Chapter 2 : 18-20. 169 


been often appealed to in justification or palliation of the sys- 
tem of slavery, as it exists by law and in fact in our own 
country. On this I have two remarks to make. 

1. Those who are fondest of making this appeal habituaily 
overlook, or are extremely careful to conceal, the fact, that 
whatever argument or inference can legitimately be drawn 
from the Bible in defence of the slavery of black men is every 
whit as valid in defencé of the slavery of white men. The 
idea that color has aught to do with the right or the wrong of 
the question is simply an additional baseness of the modern 
mind, having been utterly unknown to ancient times. From 
Genesis to Revelation you find not one reference to it; for 
the miserable trash about Ham and his descendants is not 
deemed worthy of serious mention in this place. Let the 
Sabbath-school deal with it. And, in point of fact, neither 
the servitude of the Old Testament, nor the very different 
system of Greece and Rome, made any such ridiculous dis- 
tinction. Granting, then, that the Apostles speak to slaves, 
be it remembered that they speak to white slaves, equally as 
to black; or rather the vast majority of those slaves belonged 
to the former category. Probably, were this duly considered, 
and especially were the old impartial practice reproduced 
among ourselves, the Apostles would suddenly lose some 
small portion of their popularity with certain despisers and 
abusers of the colored race—as it is absurdly enough called. 

2. My second remark is, that, when you hear the Bible 
quoted as the champion of the slave-system, you will do well 
to recal distinctly to mind what that system is in our day, no 
less than in the apostolic age. Of course, the system is just 
what the law makes it, and allows it to be. But, as formerly 
in heathen Rome, so now in Christian America, the funda- 
mental principle of the system, as declared by statute and 
judicial decisions, is that the slave is a thing with no personal 
rights whatsoever—to all intents and purposes a chattel per- 
sonal, like a wagon or a horse; and who can doubt, that the 
damnable theory is often but too faithfully illustrated by the 
practice ? Whoever; then, shall say that the Prophets of God, 
or our blessed Lord and His Apostles, ever countenanced by 
word or act such a theory or such a practice as that, need 


170 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


scarcely be defied to make good his assertion. He will, in 
truth, succeed merely in showing that he himself is destitute 
of a moral sense. 

There were, in fact, very many most vicious habits and in- 
stitutions throughout the Empire, which the glorious Gospel 
of the grace of God did not assail openly and by name. Did 
it, therefore, sanction any one of them? Nay, rather it an- 
nounced principles, and breathed into the soul of man a spirit, 
that must sooner or later dissolve them all. It came not to 
scatter, as with the force of a tornado, the mists of hell then 
brooding over all the earth; but, like the rising sun, it looked 
upon them, and, wherever its influence penetrated, they 
slowly, but surely, faded beneath its eye. 

Thus it proclaimed the unity of the race, and the essential 
equality of all men in the sight of God—their common ruin 
by sin—their common redemption by Christ. It did not ex- 
pressly command the mastér to emancipate his slave. But it 
led him into the presence, and placed him at the feet, of his 
own Master in heaven, with whom is no respect of persons ; 
and there he finds sitting next to him his poor, down-trodden, 
or perhaps till now unthought of, dependent, the object, 
equally with himself, of the Divine sympathy. Before the 
face of the compassionate Jesus, their tears of contrition and 
of grateful joy meet and mingle. They are sprinkled with 
the same blood of reconciliation, and sealed with the same 
Holy Spirit, and, with hearts subdued at once to humility and. 
love, they eat of the same bread, and drink of the same cup. 
Who does not feel, that whatever hitherto was bitter, corrupt- 
ing, and debasing in the relation existing between these two 
men has already passed away for ever; that the inward life 
has gone out of it; and that, as the breath of God gradually 
transforms society into ‘a new lump,’* the relation itself, in 
its old form of a legal perpetual constraint, is not likely long 
to survive? Such, accordingly, is the well-known history of 
slavery’s decline and ultimate disappearance in European 
Christendom. And our shame and horror is just this, that in 
a land, which boasts itself as preéminently the home of free- 


1 (Croygs Ἢ  9p 


Lecture X V—Chapter 2 : 18-20. ΤΙ 


dom, the blessed process has to so deplorable an extent been 
reversed, while the Church of God in the midst of us has 
looked calmly, if not complacently, on at the hideous specta- 
cle, or at best has turned her face from it, and given no ade- 
quate utterance to the indignant grief and stern protest, 
which it should have aroused in every honest and unperverted 
conscience, being all the while absorbed in the work of sup- 
pressing wine-drinking, and dancing, and in converting the 
world. So much for the first of the two extreme views to 
which I before alluded. 

II. The other is that which regards even the outward form 
of the relation in question as in all cases so inherently sinful, 
as to require its immediate and absolute exclusion from the 
Church. On the one hand, it refuses to the master, who may 
utterly abhor and repudiate the dehumanizing theory, and the 
brutal practice resulting from it, but for reasons satisfactory to: 
himself simply declines to manumit, all recognition as a Chris-. 
tian disciple ; and, on the other hand, it encourages the slave, 
by whatever crafty or violent methods, to escape from or 
burst his bonds. 

Now, all this I hold with no less firmness to be a clearly un- 
scriptural extravagance. No exegetical ingenuity can recon- 
cile it with apostolic teaching, or the discipline of the aposto- 
lic churches. Few things, in my opinion, are more histori- 
cally certain as to the constitution of those churches, than 
that they embraced many, who, while they rejoiced to feel 
that they were one in Christ, yet continued to stand to each 
other before the law as slaveholders and slaves. The former, 
though taught to forbear threatening, and to treat their slaves 
with justice and equity, were not required to emancipate them, 
as an indispensabJe preliminary to their enjoying the fellow- 
ship of Apostles ; but the latter zwere required to submit them- 
selves to their masters, and to please them well in all things. 
The truth, which had made them ‘ free indeed ’—free with ‘ the 
glorious liberty of the children of God’ *—was thereby only to 
make them better servants—more willing, and cheerful, and 
faithful. For now in all their service of their earthly masters, 


* John 8 : 36; Rom. 8: 21. 


172 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


at home and abroad, everywhere and at all times, it was their 
privilege to know that in a far higher sense they might rather 
be said to ‘serve the Lord Christ ;’ and what mere change of 
earthly station could confer honor or happiness to be compared 
with that? The friend and follower of Him who was meek 
and lowly in heart, and who Himself came not to be minis- 
tered unto, but to minister, could no longer feel himself de- 
graded by the humiliations of his daily lot. Nay, he thus 
became like his Lord, and was enabled to enter more deeply 
into the fellowship of His sufferings. 

In this spirit did apostolic Christianity deal with the slave ; ; 
and I fully believe it to be still the wisest and kindest way of 
dealing with him. All this, however, be it remembered, does 
in no degree whatever impair the strength and sacredness of 
the obligation that presses upon us, as citizens of this great 
republic, to do what we can, by all lawful methods, to limit 
and destroy a system so prolific of sin and misery to all con- 
cerned, and so fatal to the peace and security of the state, as 
that of American Slavery. 


LECTORE XV. 


i PETER 2 : 21-25. 


‘ For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leav- 
ing us an example, that ye should follow His steps: who did no sin, neither was 
guile found in His mouth: who, when He was reviled, reviled not again ; when 
He suffered, He threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judgeth 
righteously : who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that 
we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness : by whose stripes ye were 
healed. For ye were as sheep going astray ; but are nowreturned unto the Shep- 
herd and Bishop of your souls.’ 


Tue Apostle has just been encouraging servants—most of 
whom, no doubt, were at that time slaves—to submission and 
patience under the hardships and wrongs to which they were 
exposed, by a repeated assurance that such a spirit and de- 
portment was ‘an acceptable thing with God.’ In the verses 
which now lie before us he makes good this assertion by show- 
ing them that, difficult and painful as the duty was, their 
obligation to it was really embraced in their calling of God to 
be the followers of Him who, by His own meek endurance of 
unmerited suffering, had both saved them, and set an example 
for their imitation. On this great example, therefore, as pre- 
senting at once the best pattern of obedience and the most 
persuasive motives, the writer, according to apostolic custom, 
dwells with a fond amplification. 


‘For unto this* were ye called’—the Divine calling being 
but the manifestation of the Divine purpose, as another 
Apostle had long before explained that, both by word and by 


* εἰς τοῦτος. Our version inserts eve, for no other reason, it would appear, than 
that Tyndale, Cranmer, and the Bishops’ Bible, have ver/y, and Beza has etiam. 


174 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


letter, to the Thessalonians.* Few considerations, it is ob- 
vious, were so well fitted to engage the ready assent of the 
children of God to any precept whatever, as a conviction that 
what was thus required was expressly contemplated in the 
eternal plan of their Father’s love, and so formed an essential 
part, whether as a condition or a result, of their Christian 
calling. Both ideas, accordingly, meet us everywhere in the 

New Testament, as when the disciples are exhorted to peace, 

or purity, or general holiness,} or, as here, to patience under 
trial. That ‘we must through many afflictions enter into the 

kingdom of God’{—that of these afflictions a large proportion 

would spring immediately from the wickedness of men—but 

that in all cases alike the necessity rested ultimately on the 

Divine ordination—these were among the more familiar topics 

in the teaching of that age. The calling of the Church, there- 
fore, to God’s ‘ kingdom and glory’§ implied her calling to pre- 

sent suffering—undeserved, patient suffering—as the only 

road thither. But that on which our Apostle especially insists, : 
as in itself a sufficient confirmation of the nature in this re- 

spect of the calling, is the fact, that here is the royal road— 

the King’s highway—in which the King Himself was a tra- 

veller. 

‘ Because Christ also suffered for us. || On one occasion, 
when ‘Jesus began to show unto His disciples, how that He 
must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders 
and chief priests and scribes, and be killed,’ this same ‘ Peter 
took Him, and began to rebuke Him, saying: Be it far from 
thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee.**) Very diderent 
were his views and his feelings now. Now, like Paul, he 
glories in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.t{ Says he: 
‘ Christ also suffered’—Christ, the blessed Master, the loving 
Saviour of us all, He too suffered, O suffering saints! Where 
He sends you, He Himself first led the way. He voluntarily 
- suffered—suffered not only from God’s justice, but from the 
cruelest injustice of man, and so in that point also was tried 


* 1 Thess.3:3,4.  ἠἰ Rom. 8: 29, 30; 1 Cor. 7: 153 1 Thess. 4: 7, etc. 
t Acts 14 : 22, (πολλῶν ϑλίψεων.) § 1 Thess, 2 : 12. 

|| Instead of Χριστὸς ἐπαϑεν, Sin. reads: ὁ Χριστος ἀπέϑανεν. 

** Matt. 16 : 21, 22. tt Gal. 6 : 14. 


Lecture XVI—Chapter 2 : 21-25. 175 


even as youare. Nay, in @// His sufferings He was personally 
innocent—innocent, as none of us will’ quite claim to be in 
any of ours. That He suffered at all was owing solely to the 
love He bore to us. When, therefore, you are tempted to 
resentment or despondency under unmerited pains, lift your 
eyes to ‘Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith.’* He 
‘also’ suffered unjustly, in that He suffered, not for Himself, 
nor for aught that He had done, but ‘for ws’—in our stead, 
for our sakes, for our salvation. ‘In what way Christ's suffer- 
ings inure to our so great benefit, I shall remind you presently. 
But the general statement, that it was for us He suffered, you 
will at once joyfully admit. And I would now particularly 
have you understand, that one thought of Christ in His vicari- 
ous suffering was, to teach you how to suffer. He suffered, 
‘leaving us’—leaving behind Him, as He went to the Fathert— 
‘an example’—a writing-copy, or sketch, the word ᾧ originally 
means— that ye should follow ’—closely, intently follow— Fis 
footsteps’ § True, those footsteps lead far down into the 
valley of humiliation. Yea, all over it, and in its lowest, 
darkest depths, you will find them, wet with His tears and 
blood. But follow them none the less earnestly—none the 
less confidently. For they also lead through it, and out of it ; 
and they are the footsteps of the Son of God, our Saviour. 
By glancing at the margin, you will see that there is a 
doubt as to the exact reading of this verse. Instead of 
‘Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, || many 
have Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example,** 

we Yieb, 1252 2: 

+ broduurdvev—Bengel, ‘in abitu ad Patrem’—occurs nowhere else in the 
New Testament. 

t broypaupov—another of Peter’s ἅπαξ λεγόμενα. Comp. 2 Macc. 2 : 28, and 
Clem. Alex. Strom. v. 8. ὑπογραμμός παιδικός. 

ὃ ἐπακολουϑήσητε τοῖς ἴχνεσιν αὐτοῦ. The Syriac=‘72 His footsteps’ is strik- 
ing, and has been often followed. But it is not favored by the other instances of 
this verb with the dative, (1 Tim. 5: 10, 24.) Still, the ἐπί is no doubt em- 
phatic. 

|| So Erasmus, Stephens, Beza, Mill, Wells, after several ancient versions (in- 
cluding the Syriac) and a few cursive MSS., (mentioned by Pott. Huther thinks 
B may perhaps be added.) 

** So the Elzevir, Bengel, Wetstein, Griesbach, Knapp, Meyer, Steiger, Hahn, 


Lachmann, Theile, Alford, after Sin. A, B, [according to Lachmann,] C, besides 
cursive MSS., the Amiatine Vulgate, etc. 


176 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


and others still, Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an 
example.* As in every other such case of disputed readings, 
the question fortunately is of no importance to the settlement 
of any Christian truth. But, on the whole, the last of these 
variations is perhaps to be preferred ; the sudden resumption 
of the second person being easily enough accounted for from 
the special design of the context. That was, you recollect, 
to guide and comfort the most depressed and helpless class 
of believers—and with them, of course, all believers—when 
subjected to injurious treatment. Now, with this immediate 
end in view, it was very natural for the writer to say, as he 
thought of the meek, unmurmuring, self-sacrificing Christ, 
‘Christ also suffered for us—for us Christians, for all of us ; 
and, in doing so, He left you an example—you especially, ye 
despised and outraged slaves.’ To my mind this reading, 
which implies a slight contrast in the pronouns, is not a little 
confirmed by the fact of their juxtaposition in the original, 
which stands thus: ‘ Christ also suffered for us, to you leaving 
an example. It may be added that a similar change of person 
is of frequent occurrence in these writings of Peter—another 
instance being even found here in the 24th verse.t 


But now let us attend the Apostle in his nearer contemp- 
lation of the example itself. 

And the first essential point is the znnocence of the Sufferer, 
which is, therefore, again and more directly asserted: ‘ Who 
aid no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth. The lan- 
guage is borrowed from the 53d chapter of Isaiah ;4 nor is 
this, we shall find, by any means the only marked allusion 
which these verses contain to that wonderful prophetic de- 
scription of the Man of Sorrows. Only more wonderful is 
the precise historical realization of its every feature in the 


* This is favored by the margin of Bengel and Griesbach, and is adopted by 
the Complutensian, Matthaei, Scholz, Bloomfield, Tischendorf, after G, J, cur- 
sive MSS., the Clementine Vulgate, etc. It will be observed that the weight of 
authority greatly preponderates in favor of ὑμῖν, ‘leaving you,’ etc. 

DC CIUISOLC Rl 675,.4.. Ὁ. 15. 5: 10; 2 beta τ ἢ, an: 

¢ According to the Alexandrian copy of the LXX., except that Peter substi- 
tutes ἁμαρτίαν for ἀνομίαν. 


Lecture XVI—Chapter 2 : 21-25. 177. 


Man Christ Jesus ; as, for instance, of this the most wonderful 
feature of all, to wit, absolute sinlessness. For here was no 
case of a merely comparative excellence. He, whose ‘ visage 
was so marred more than any man, and His form more than 
the sons of men,’ was God’s ‘holy €hitt Jesus ’—‘that holy 
thing’ born of the Virgin—the ‘clean thing out of an 
unclean,’ to whose production no power was equal but that of 
the overshadowing Spirit.* From the very midst of a world 
lying in wickedness, as well as over it, rose this Sun of Right- 
eousness, and the keenest and most malignant scrutiny of 
eighteen centuries has detected in Him no spot, no darkness 
at all. In the wilderness, immediately after His baptism, 
and in the hour and power of darkness just before His death, 
the accuser of God’s children came, and found nothing in 
Him. And with what a glad consenting testimony do the 
Apostles celebrate this glorious distinction of the world’s 
Redeemer! He ‘knew no sin,’ says Paul.t ‘In Him is no 
sin, says John.{ He ‘aid no sin, says Peter. His heart and 
His life were equally untainted and pure. God Himself, 
though He ‘ putteth no trust in His saints ; yea, the heavens 
are not clean in His sight,’ looked on the lowly ‘friend of 
publicans and sinners, and owned Him for His Son, and 
proclaimed the paternal joy. § 

‘ Netther was guile found in His mouth, adds Peter, still 
making his own, and as it were adding the stamp of his per- 
sonal knowledge and experience to the witness borne so long 
before by the evangelical seer to the character of Messiah. 
For in that particular also our Lord Jesus fully answered to 
the ancient portraiture. He proved to be the ‘perfect man, 
who offends not in word.’ Often as His enemies sought to 
‘entangle Him in His talk, they recoiled shattered and 
abashed before the ‘simplicity and godly sincerity’ with 
which He spake. He was ‘the Amen, the faithful and true 
Witness’—faithful to God—faithful to man. His word was 
ever like the heavens, in its transparency.as in its depth—‘as 
it were the body of heaven in His clearness.’|| Nor yet 


* Js. 52:14; Acts 4:30; Luke r +35; Job.14-4 f 2)Cor 5° 21: 
¢ 1 John 3: 5. δ᾽ 1 5.15.» Matters rol; 17's 5: 
iMjamesi37: 2 5 Mattizertrnees Cor, 1 : 12: Rev. 3: 14; Bx ΖΗ: ΤΌ; 


7 . 
Wid 


@) Or puem 


178 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


merely without guile was His speech. Oh! how kind, and 
patient, and tender, and merciful was it. ‘Grace was poured 
into His lips ;’ and well might His countrymen, in their ig- 
norance of the infinite fulness whence flowed the unfailing, 
calm, pellucid, refreshing stream, ‘wonder at the words of 
grace which proceeded out of His mouth.’ * 

Nor did this Divine grace show itself in His discourses 
alone. He ‘went about doing good.’ His whole life was 
love. And He died for the world’s salvation. 

Such was Christ; so innocent, so loving, so beneficent, 
both in word and deed. And yet, says Peter, you know how 
He suffered—suffered from the world’s ingratitude and hatred 
—a hatred truly without a cause.t 


Consider, then, in the next place, how He bore His suffer- 
2702S. 

‘Who, when reviled, reviled not again; when suffering, threat- 
ened not.§ In neither clause is the reference to any single 
occasion, but in both, as the original plainly indicates,]|| to the 
habitual provocations and trials that marked His whole his- 
tory. 

He was ‘veviled” According to His own sorrowful antici- 
pation in the 69th Psalm, ‘they that sat in the gate spake 
against Him; and He was the song of the drunkards... . 
Reproach,’ said He, ‘hath broken my heart; and I am full of 
heaviness. Trembling demons did, indeed, confess Him to 
be ‘the Holy One of God.** But from human lips there was 
breathed a cloud of foulest insult and calumny around ‘the 
Son of the Blessed’—the ‘ holy, harmless, undefiled’++—as He 
passed on His brief way through this evil world. A man 
eluttonous, and a wine-bibber—a vain boaster, and false pre- 
tender—a profaner of the Sabbath, and a dishonorer of the 


* Ps. 45:2; Luke 4: 22, (τοῖς λόγοις τῆς χάριτος.) t Acts 10: 38. 
+ John 15 : 25. § λοιδορούμενος... πάσχων. 
[ἀντελοιδόρει (this verb occurs nowhere else in the New Testament; and this 

fact may have led to the reading of Sin., ἐλοιδόρει)... ἠπείλει. In the above 
translation, it will be observed, the relative is made the nominative also to the 
second verb. ‘This is the more proper, as the relative construction is continued 
in the next verse. 

** Luke 4 : 34. ti Mark 14: 61; Heb. 7 : 26. 


Lecture XVI—Chapter 2 : 21-25. 179 


temple—a companion of wicked men—nay, Himself a blas- 
phemer, and a demoniac—such were the imputations flung at 
‘the Man who is God’s fellow.* Nor did the malignant 
storm abate even in the presence of His cross. ‘They that 
passed by reviled Him, wagging their heads. . . . Likewise 
also the chief priests mocking Him, with the scribes and 
elders. .. . And they that were crucified with Him reviled 
Him.’+ 

Now, what the Apostle would have his brethren, when evil- 
spoken of, and especially the slaves, under the contemptuous 
abuse perhaps hourly heaped on them, remember, was the 
manner in which their Saviour had met the worst forms of 
obloquy. He ‘reviled not again’—‘rendered not railing for 
railing. ὁ Sometimes by earnest instruction and expostula- 
tion He sought to convince His enemies of their sin, and 
save them from the guilt of its repetition. As often, per- 
haps, ‘He held His peace, and answered nothing.’|| And 
when at the last He opened His mouth on Calvary amidst 
the pitiless jeers of His murderers, it was in prayer to His 
Father, that they might be forgiven.** . 

For as, ‘ when reviled, He reviled not again, so ‘when suffer- 
zug’ the more violent inflictions of malice and rage—the pur- 
ple robe, the crown of thorns, the smiting, the scourging, the 
nails, the cross—still He ‘ threatened not’—assumed no frown 
of wrathful majesty—kept back the crowding legions of an- 
gels—manifested no gleam either of the Divine justice, or 
even of human anger. ‘He is brought as a lamb. to the 
slaughter. tf What God-like composure! What almighty 
patience and self-control! Or let us say, what a triumph of 
filial resignation and faith! For what says the text? 

‘But committed Himself’tt—not merely His agonized body, 


Fecha Tauciys t Matt. 27: 39,41; Mark 15 : 32. 
Hy sli etete, BUG 0 § Matt. 9: 4, etc.; John Io: 34, etc. 
|| Mark 14 : 61. ** Luke 23 : 34. Tih USS ἢ: 


tt This reflexive interpretation of παρεδίδου is preferred by Winer, De Wette, 
and others, and is defended by reference to Mark 4 : 29; Sept. Josh. 11 : 19, as 
read by the Complutensian and Aldine editors from A ; and the frequent use in 
Greek of active verbs in an intransitive or reflexive sense. Very many, however, 
would supply differently: Ais judgment or cause, (so the English margin after 
Tyndale, the Syriac, Calvin, Beza, Bengel, etc.,) vengeance or punishment, (so 


180 Lectures on the Farst Epistle of Peter. 


or His departing spirit,* but His cause, His all, and, in par- 
ticular, the determination of the question of His guilt or in- 
nocence, the whole matter as it stood between Him and His 
adversaries—‘ to Him that judgeth righteously. And you all 
know—this also is implied—how speedily and how gloriously 
the decision of His unrighteous judges was reversed. When 
the Father raised Jesus from the dead, and set Him at His 
own right hand, then was this truth among many others 
thereby sealed and established for ever, that the patient en- 
durance for His sake of wrongful suffering is ‘an acceptable 
thing with God.’ 

So far, you perceive, it is all as if to these heavy-laden 
brethren the Apostle had said: ‘Behold the Man! Consider 
Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Him- 
self, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.’ t 


But Peter well knew, and would not for one moment suffer 
them to forget, that the wondrous career of the Master was 
not altogether for the sake of an example. Other and deeper 
relations there were, in which it was, indeed, unique and ini- 
mitable, but which only the more powerfully commended and 
enforced the example, as that had now been displayed. ‘ Who 
Himself’ t+—Himself alone, without rivalry or codperation of 
any sort—‘ bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, 
being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose 
stripes ye were healed, 

Here we have the fuller explananion of what was in be- 
fore about Christ’s ‘suffering for us. Let us look carefully 
at the old familiar phrases, that, if possible, we may freshen 
our sense of their blessed import. 

‘Who bare our sins’ The word rendered dare, which 
means, first, to dring or carry up, (Matt.17:1; Luke 24:51, 


Erasmus, Cranmer, Geneva, etc.,) 22, that is, τὸ λοιδορεῖσϑαι τὸ πάσχειν, His 
wrongs, (so Luther, the Dutch, Hammond, Huther, Wiesinger, etc.,) ¢4em, His 
wrong-doers, (Alford.)—The Vulgate ¢radebat autem judicanti se injuste (=Ken- 
rick, delivered Himself up to him [Pilate] who judged Him unjustly ; as if reading 
ἀδίκως) is chiefly interesting as being one of the peculiarities of that version, 
which Roman Catholic interpreters cannot agree to defend. Estius attributes it 
to the ignorance of copyists, and Kenrick passes it in silence. 
* Luke 23 : 4% t John 19: 5; Heb. 12: 3. { αὐτός. 


Lecture X VI—Chapter 2 : 21-25. 181 


etc.,) is hence often used, as in v. 5 of this chapter, to express 
the offering of sacrifice,* and this as well without, as with, 
the addition of o the altar. In like manner, another classical 
meaning of the Greek verb, to také wp on one, sustains, (for 
example, war or distress of any kind,) occurs with simply szz 
for the object, as when we read, (Heb. 9: 28,) ‘Christ was 
once offered to bear the sins of many.’ t Now, the only point 
in which the present case differs from this last one, is the 
extension of the idea by the words, ‘22 4715 own body on the 
tree. And this circumstance it is, no doubt, that led Luther,t 
in accordance with the second usage specified, to introduce 
the very harsh representation, for which I am not aware that 
any Scriptural parallel can be adduced, offered our sins tn 
flis own body on the tree, and has led very many others § to 
go back to what I mentioned as the primary signification, 
bore—bore up—our sins in|| his own body to the tree; Col. 
2:14 being sometimes given in illustration, and the tree 
itself often thought of as an altar. To conceive of the cross 
as an altar, however, is scarcely in the style of the New Tes- 
tament, whose occasional use of ¢vee for the cross ** rests on 
Deut. 21 : 23, (Gal. 3 : 13,) ‘He that is hanged [on a tree] is 
accursed*of God,’ and invariably suggests the naked, penal 
idea of a gibbet. But, on the other hand, we can by no means 
let go the sacrificial force of the phrase bearing sins, as it 
meets us twice in the very chapter of Isaiah, (53 : 11, 12,) 
from which our Apostle is here so largely, though tacitly, 
quoting.tf As the sins of the Israelite were symbolically 
transferred to the victim, so on the head of this Lamb of 


* See also Heb. 7:27; 13:15; James 2:21. The Septuagint thus uses 
ἀναφέρω for x55, 2 Chron. 29 : 31; for a“4p7, Hews 352 1457 Deut) 1171775) for 


4 Followed, I think, only by Thomson and Grashof. 

§ From Castalio and Beza to Wiesinger. 

| The ἐν is omitted by Sin. 

APAGtS) 5) 2 3015, ΤΟ τ 20. 17 50. 

tt The Syriac, accordingly, long ago assumed a constructio pregnans,—bore our 
sins, and lifted them in His body to the cross, and this explanation has of late been 
revived by De Wette and Huther. But there.is no necessity for regarding the 
case as any thing more than the very common one of ἐπί with an accusative, 


182 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


God were laid, in dark, dread reality, the sins of us all, and 
all our sins, the least and the greatest. Amazing burden! 
Yet He bore it. And it crushed Him down into death. For 
He bore it—not as Aaron, in the substituted bodies of sheep 
and oxen brought to his hand by the transgressors—but ‘ zz 
His own body, prepared of God; His whole person, body 
and soul together. And He bore it ‘ ox the tree’ *—dying that 
death of the curse—the felon’s death—the slave’s death. It 
is true, our Lord’s vicarious suffering was not confined to the 
period of the crucifixion. But faith is thus directed to the 
cross, as presenting not merely the historical termination and 
climax, but the legal and indispensable completion of all the 
rest. ‘Without shedding of blood is no remission.f| Nor was 
the forgiveness of sin at the bar of God the only effect con- 
templated in this great sacrifice. An ulterior result,and one 
no less glorious, was the inward change to be wrought in thee 
sinner himself: ‘ that, dying ἢ to sins, we might live to righteous- 
ness. Some, I am aware, understand this of the change in 
the believer’s legal relations—of his passing from under the 
condemning power of sin to a life under the influence of a 
justified state ;$ or, as others, to life through the righteous- 


when the verb of motion, appropriate to such a construction, is suppressed, and 
is to be only mentally supplied: dare our sins in His own body [when lifted] wpon 
the tree. Comp. Rev. 4 : 4, they had [placed] upon their heads, etc.; Sept. Ex. 
29 : 38, where, after ἐπὶ tod ϑυσιαστηρίου, we have in the same connection ἐπί τὸ 
ϑυσιαστήριον ; Is. 56: 7, etc.—Alford seems.to combine Luther’s idea with that 
of the Syriac. 

* ξύλον, wood, timber. But, while in ordinary speech our word ¢ree, uncom- 
pounded, (for cvoss-tree, roof-tree, etc., are common enough,) does not carry this 
meaning, the old English use of it in the present relation occasions no difficulty, 
I believe, to the plainest reader, but is just as readily understood as Spenser, 
Llymn of Heavenly Love, 153-4: 


‘ At length Him nayled on a gallow-tree, 
And slew the Just by most unjust decree.’ 

ἢ ΠΕΡ» .0.: 22. 

} droyevouevor—here only in the New Testament—is sometimes rendered de- 
livered, discharged, removed from. But the other interpretation, which is as old as 
the Syriac and Vulgate, is justified by classical use, the Pauline parallel, (Rom. 
6 : 2, 11,) and the correlative ζήσωμεν. 

§ Brown; who takes both datives as instrumental: ‘that we dying by sins 
might live by righteousness.’ 


Lecture XVI—Chapter 2 : 21-25. 183 


ness of Christ.* Both these ideas are most’ precious truths, 
but in the text they are both rather taken for granted, than 
expressly exhibited. What Peter here holds up to view, as a 
motive to the performance of all moral duty, is the purpose 
and influence, not of Christ’s personal righteousness, but of 
His expiatory death, in destroying the dominion of sin within 
our nature, and quickening the soul with the new life of holi- 
ness—that radical spiritual revolution, which Paul in almost 
every Epistle loves to celebrate as effected in believers through 
the death of their Surety, or, to use his own phrase, ‘in the 
body of Christ’s flesh through death. + Thus, for himself, Paul 
gloried only in the cross, not merely as the pledge of pardon 
and peace, but as the instrument no less of sanctification. 
And with a like immediate reference to the Saviour’s death 
and resurrection, as a source of vital power in the Church, 
he would say to his brethren: ‘ Likewise reckon ye also your- 
selves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through 
Jesus Christ our Lord. § For this was then, and is now, the 
right estimate of all true Christians. 


But mark, finally, with what gentle address Peter, still 
thinking of that 53d of Isaiah, (vs. 5, 6,) again turns, and ap- 
plies what he has been saying to the poor slaves themselves : 
‘By whose || stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going 
astray 2** but havett now returned to the Shepherd and Bishop’ 
—that is, Overseer $i—‘ of your souls, 


* The Syriac, followed by Wakefield, Burton, and the Swiss version, (Lau- 
sanne, 1849.) 

im Coleen : 22. ἘΠ 51 Ὁ: TAs § Rom. 6: 10, II. 

|| Lachmann cancels the αὐτοῦ, on the authority of A, B, C, Sin.? 

** Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford, read πλανώμενοι, (Sin. A, B,)=ye were going 
astray as sheep. 

tt The aorist passive of ἐπεστρέφω has a middle force throughout the New Tes- 
tament ; Matt.9 : 22; 10:13; Marks : 30; 8: 33; John 12: 40, [Acts 28 : 273] 
21 : 20. 

tt It is not doubted that the term ἐπίσκοπος was by this time in common use in 
the Church as a ministerial title. If, then, the main thing here were the trans- 
ference of this title to the Lord, whatever word is employed to render it in that 
sense elsewhere ought to be retained here. The misfortune is, that the word 
bishop, which, says Richardson, ‘upon the introduction of Christianity found its 
way into all the European languages,’ nowhere carried along with it the import 
of its Greek etymology, (ἐπί, σκοπέω,) inspector, overseer. That this thought, how- 


- 


184 Lectures on the First Eptstle of Peter. 


The word for stripes * properly denotes the marks of blows, 
or the tumors raised by scourging—that other slave’s punish- 
ment; to which, also, Jesus submitted, when He ‘gave His 
back to the smiters.’f} But here and in Isaiah it doubtless 
represents the entire ‘ chastisement of our peace ’—the sum 
of Christ’s sufferings on our behalf, whence proceeded, in the 
marvellous processes of grace, healing for all our maladies 
and woes. ‘All we like sheep had gone astray; we had 
turned every one to his own way ;’ when, lo! the smitten 
Shepherd reappeared on the heavenly hills, and ‘called His 
own sheep by name.’ Among those who earliest heard His 
voice, and, looking back from the wilderness, came thronging 
into His presence, were these benighted, perishing wanderers. 
And now at last, beneath the inspection of His eye, and the 
saving strength of His right hand, their weary souls, for 
which no man had cared, found safety and rest. 


ever, was at least the more prominent in the mind of the Apostle, may be inferred 
from the connection of ἐπίσκοπον, without an article, with ποιμένα, and from the 
close relation in which ποιμένα καὶ ἐπίσκοπον, with one article, stands to souls 
returned as sheep from their wandering. The same view is confirmed by the joint 
occurrence of the kindred verbs in ch. 5 : 2, and ina similar relation. 

* uddop—here used collectively ; like 4y237, for which it stands in Sept, Is. 


53:5. It does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament. 
Tt Is. 50: 6. ¢ John 10: 3. 


LECTURE XV EH: 


WPETER 3.2 1-7. 


* LIKEWISE, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands ; that, if any obey 
not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the 
wives ; while they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. Whose 
adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing 
of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in 
that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which 
is in the sight of God of great price. For after this manner in the old time the 
holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjectiom 
unto their own husbands: even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord :: 
whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amaze-. 
ment. Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving 
honor unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of. 
the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered. 


THESE verses deal with another, and the last that is here: 
specified, of those social relations of the natural life, in which, 
the writer would have his brethren deport themselves in such 
a way as would be likely to disarm prejudice, silence calumny, 
and commend their new faith to a jealous and observant 
world. In the original, accordingly, there appears to be still 
kept up a grammatical connection with the middle of the pre- 
ceding chapter.* Let us first go over the passage with some 
care, before speaking generally of the subject matter. 

‘Zikewise’—the main thing insisted on hitherto in the 
other cases being the duty of submission—‘ Likewise, ye} 
wives, submit yourselves’—for the word is the same as before ᾧ 
—‘ submit yourselves ’—of course, in the-Lord, or with a con- 


* Comp. p. 160, note * 
t See p. 165, note* Lachmann cancels ai, (after Sin. A, B.) 
1 ὑποτασσόμεναι. See p. 165. 


186 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


trolling regard to the Divine authority—‘ zo your own hus- 
bands. Too much stress has sometimes been laid on this 
expression,* as if an opposition were intended to other men, 
or other women’s husbands.f But it is also an extreme to 
take all emphasis out of it, and, instead of ‘your own hus- 
bands, to say simply your husbands.t The writer, we may 
well believe, meant to suggest the peculiar and exclusive inti- 
macy of the marriage relation as one motive to submission. 

And another such motive is the happy influence which the 
Christian wife might thus exert on her husband, and that in 
the worst supposable case—‘ that, even if some disobey the 
word’ §—the word of God’s truth and grace by Jesus Christ, 
that word whose regenerating, purifying, and nourishing en- 
ergies, (ch. I : 22, 23; 2:2,) you have yourselves experienced, 
and which you therefore delight to recognize as your supreme 
law—‘ that, even if some disobey the word’—have thus far stood 
out stubbornly against its invitations and commands— ¢hey 
may without the word be wonx’||—won from heathen darkness 
and the bondage of Satan for Christ, and as your own insepa- 
rable companions in the coming kingdom—‘ dy the conversa- 
tion, or bchavior** ‘of the wives. Blessed reward, surely, of a 
magnanimous patience and humility! What other gain could 
be so dear to your loving hearts ? 

But how, you will ask, could this result be anticipated 
‘without the word’? Can any thing take the place of the 
Gospel, as the instrument of human salvation? The difficulty 


* τοῖς ἰδίοις ἀνδράσιν. 

+ So Estius, Calovius, Benson, Bloomfield, Steiger, (who cites from Calovius 
what the latter had borrowed with slight change from Estius and Huther then 
errs in ascribing to Calvin.) 

¢ So (or similarly, thetr husbands) the older English v versions, and most foreign 
commentators, including Winer and De Wette. 

§ καὶ εἴ τινες ἀπειϑοῦσι. The general rule respecting the reference of the em- 
phatic «ai to what immediately follows holds good also in its combinations with 
other particles, as καὶ ei, (for which see Hartung i. 140-1 and Kiihner ὃ 340, 7,) 
εἰ Kai, (see on v. 14,) etc. In such cases the English version is apt either to drop 
the kai, (as in 1 Cor. 7 : 21, where the omission helps not a little to conceal what 
some believe to be the Apostle’s meaning,) or, as here, to displace it.—dmewSovor ; 
ἈΞ ΣΕ. Ὁ ΟΡ. Ῥ. 234, εἰς: 

|| Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford, read κερδηϑήσονται, (the uncials, including 
Sin.) On the occasional occurrence of a future subjunctive, see Winer, p. 70. 

** See p. 132, note f. 


Lecture X VII—Chapter 3: 1-7. 187 


is rather evaded, than fairly met, by limiting the result, as 
has sometimes been done, to such a preliminary conciliation 
of the unbelieving husband, as will secure for the Gospel a 
calmer and less prejudiced hearing. The better and more 
common solution is suggested by a peculiarity of the original 
phraseology, which might be represented thus: ‘that, even if 
some disobey the word, they may zéthout word* be won by 
the behavior of the wives ;’ that is, without word of yours, 
whether in the way of remonstrance, or argument, or exhorta- 
tion, or entreaty. 

And this interpretation, you will notice, is confirmed by 
what follows : ‘ deholding | your chaste behavior, your untaint- 
ed purity of life and conversation, so different from what they 
are used to see in heathen families around, and yet leading to 
no assumption of superior airs on your part, but, on the con- 
trary, ‘joined wzth fear, ὁ or a sincere respect and reverence 
for their own persons and authority. 

It is clear, therefore, that the Apostle would have these 
women seek to influence their husbands rather through the 
eye than the ear—by the daily appeal of what an old Greek 
commentator calls ‘ voiceless work,’ which, says he, is ‘ strong- 
er than unworking speech.’§ Or, as the same idea is ex- 
pressed by the great English dramatist : 


‘The silence often of pure innocence 
Persuades, when speaking fails.’ || 


And to the same effect our text goes on to intimate, that 
such a spirit and deportment as is here enjoined on Christian 
wives is, indeed, by far their best and richest adornment. 
‘ Whose be’**—so the 3d and 4th verses might be rendered ; 


* ἄνευ λόγου. Bengel : ‘ priore loco denotatur evangelium : deinde, loguela: ‘In 
the first instance the Gospel is meant; in the second, talk.’ The antanaclasis 
has long been recognized. Thus, the Syriac=wthout trouble ; as if reading ἄνευ 
κοπου. 

+ ἐποπτεύσαντες, (Sin. : ἐποπτεύοντες.) 

ft τὴν ἐν φόβῳ ἁγνὴν ἀναστροφὴν. Comp. the φοβῆται of Eph. 5 : 33. 

§ CEcumenius: ἄφωνον ἔργον, κρείσσον ἀπράκπου λόγου. 

|| Shakespeare, Winter's Tale, ii. 2. 

** ὧν ἔστω. The ordinary construction, which governs ὧν by κόσμος, and sup- 
plies another κόσμος to ὁ ἔξωϑεν, is not that most readily suggested by the Greek 
arrangement. Nor is there any good reason for subverting the natural order. 


ἜΝ Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


or, And let yours be*— not} the outward adorning of plaiting 
of hair,t and wearing of gold, or putting on of garments,|| 
but the hidden man of the heart, in the incorruptibleness of the 
meck and quiet spirit,** which 1s im the sight of God of great 
price. WNith this compare Paul’s very similar words to Timo- 
thy,}} which we can scarcely doubt our Apostle had in his 
eye: ‘I will . . . that women adorn themselves in modest ’— 
orderly, decorous {}—‘ apparel, with shamefacedness §§ and 
sobriety ; not with braided hair’—hterally, xo¢ 2 platts ||\|— 
‘and *** gold, or pearls, or costly raiment,f}f but, which be- 
cometh women professing godliness, by {£4 good works.’ 
Now, I certainly need not caution you against supposing, 
that either of these passages was designed to encourage a 
sordid meanness or careless slovenliness in female attire. 
But it were also to mistake their spirit, to regard them even 
as forbidding any particular style of dress or of ornament 
whatsoever, consistent with the modesty of nature, and, ac- 
cording to the usages of society, befitting the position and 
circumstances of the wearer. What both Apostles meant to 
condemn was that excessive care about such matters—that 
undue absorption of mind and heart, time and substance, in 
the business of mere bodily decoration—which is said to have 
been in all ages the easily besetting sin of female vanity. It 


The exegesis given above, though rejected by De Wette’s Gefih/, and Wiesinger, 
as ‘too abstract and flat,’ rests on the familiar use of εἰμί with the genitive, (comp. 
Matt. 5 : 3, 10; Acts 1: 7, etc.,) and is adopted by Cocceius, Bengel, Hensler, 
Steiger, Huther, and others——Alford governs ὧν by a κόσμος supplied from the 
one expressed. 

* The immediate antecedent being ὑμῶν. 

+ The demonstrative pronoun of the English version is copied from Beza. 

{ ἐμπλοκῆς toryGv.—F or τριχῶν, καί Lachmann reads 7, ((.)---περίϑεσις, ἐμ- 
πλοκή, ἔνδυσις, are not found elsewhere in the New Testament. 

§ χρυσίων, articles of gold. | ἱματίων. 

** by τῷ ἀφϑάρτῳ TOD πρᾳέος καὶ ἡσυχίου πνεύματος, (Sin. : ἐν abt. τοῦ πραέως 
ἡσυχίου xv.) Lachmann reads ἡσυχίου καὶ πραέος. 

ΤΙ ΕἸ: 2: Ὁ, 10. tt κοσμίῳ. 

§§ According to the genuine form of the word in the older English versions, 
and in the original edition of the common version. ! 

{Π| ἐν πλέγμασιν. 

x Alford: ‘Perhaps from the καί, the gold is supposed to be twined among, 
or worn with, the plaited hair.’ 

TH ἱματισμῷ. 3 ttt διά, 


Lecture X VII.—Chapter 3 : 1-7. 189 


is, indeed, a pitiable folly and shame for any woman to dress 
beyond her means, or so as to have little or nothing left for 
helping forward the cause of God or man in this world of sin 
and suffering, and this perhaps with the secret purpose of 
giving others the impression, that her means are greater than 
they are. But, be her means what they may, it is none the 
less a somewhat sorry occupation for a creature endowed 
with a reasonable soul, and called to inherit eternal life, to 
spend a large part of her brief existence on earth in watching 
the caprices of fashion, and tricking out in gold and feathers 
and such like gewgaws what Scripture calls that ‘ body of our 
humiliation, which must so soon ‘say to corruption, Thou art 
my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister.’* 
And yet I fear the case is by no means an uncommon one. 
Nay, would it be too great boldness for me to venture to ask, 
whether it is an altogether inconceivable thing that such in- 
terest as is taken by many a frivolous, empty-headed person 
in the Sabbath and the sanctuary, is mainly aroused by the 
fact, that sometimes these most blessed ordinances of the love 
of God our Saviour furnish the best opportunity for exhibit- 
ing her new bonnet to the admiration, if not the envy, of her 
neighbors ! 

Poor and base, however, as is such a temper in any rational 
being, remember that in a professed follower of the homeless 
Wanderer, who wore the seamless garment and the crown of 
thorns, it assumes a much darker and more unseemly aspect. 
An Apostle could not then think of it without amazement 
and a calm, lofty scorn. ‘ Whose be’—that is, let your concern, 
characteristic, distinction be—‘ ot the outward adorning of 
plaiting of hair, and wearing of gold, or putting on of gar- 
ments, however numerous and elegant. If these things are 
fairly and honorably at your command, still set not your heart 
on them, and be chaste and moderate in their use; or, if they 
are beyond your reach, care not for that. In either case, main- 
tain and manifest a spirit superior to them, and undazzled by 
their fascination ; so that, wherever you are spoken of, the 
first thought shall not be of your external grandeur and gay 
attire. 

* Phil. 3 : 21, (τὸ σῶμα τῆς ταπεινώσεως ἡμῶν ;) Job 17 : 14. 


190 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


‘ But’—here is the appropriate object of your care and study 
—‘ the hidden man of the heart’—what Paul so often speaks of 
as ‘the inward man,’ or ‘the new man, which after God is cre- 
ated in righteousness and holiness of the truth. . . . renewed 
unto knowledge after the image of Him that created him.’* 
For neither is Peter thinking simply of the soul as opposed 
to the body, or of some one of its natural faculties. There is 
not one of these, that sin has not defiled and darkened. He 
is addressing Christian women, and is explaining what be- 
comes them, and is expected of them, as such. By the phrase 
before us, therefore, he means to designate the soul as regen- 
erated—made ‘a new creature’ in Christ Jesus. And this 
great change, both in its origin and immediate spiritual re- 
sults, is a ‘izdden’ thing. It cometh not with observation. 
It vaunteth not itself—seeks not to walk in any vain show be- 
fore the eyes of men.f As it begins in ‘¢he heart, the inner- 
most and central part of our being, so ever after it has its seat 
of influence and control there, and thence rules over all the 
issues of life. For sooner or later the whole ‘7zaz’—our en- 
tire nature—attests its reality and power ; not at all, however, 
in the abrogation of the original distinctions and correspond- 
ing duties of the sexes, but in enabling both the man and the 
woman rightly to discern, and joyfully to fulfil, their respec- 
tive parts and mutual obligations. 

Now, one of the fairest fruits and evidences of Divine grace 
in the soul is a ‘seck and quiet spirit’—a spirit that deals gen- 
tly with others, even their faults and provocations—is not 
swift to take offence, or explode in passionate resentments— 
refrains from all arrogant interference with its neighbor's 
rights and duties, and moves contentedly, unobtrusively, and 
without disturbance or struggle, within its own allotted sphere. 
This feature, therefore, of ‘the hidden man of the heart, is 
here, in accordance with the special matter in hand, singled 
out as peculiarly the attribute and glory of Christian wives ; 


* Rom. 7:22; 2 Cor. 4:16; Eph. 3:16; 4:24, (ὁσιότητι τῆς ἀληϑείας ἡ 
Col. 3 : 10, (εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν.) 

fr 2iGorsgesau7 se Gal. δ᾽: τὺ. 

} Ps. 39\0O;-Luke 27 320; John 3:8; 1 Cor. 13:4. 


Lecture X VII—Chapter 3 : 1-7. IQI 


and you will mark the two excellencies by which it is com- 
mended to their choice. 

First, its zzcorruptibleness. In all cases, and particularly, 
says Peter, in yours, ‘the hidden man of the heart’ lives and 
moves and has his being ‘ zx the tncorruptibleness * of the meek 
and quiet spirit, or in the meek and quiet spirit which is in- 
_corruptible, not subject to decay or death, waxing not old, but 
continuing ever fresh and young, ‘after the power of an end- 
less life’ { What an advantage does this one quality give it 
over what our Apostle in the first chapter calls ‘corruptible 
things, silver or gold,’ yea, over all the fading gayeties and 
splendors of the corruptible flesh ! 

And then, secondly, ‘the meck and quict spirit, however it 
may be unnoticed or, when noticed, despised, by the rude or 
the fashionable world, ‘zs 2x the sight of God of great price. It 
is the very ‘gem of purest ray serene,’ t that shone on the 
person of God’s dear Son. And if the Saviour, by fastening 
it with His own hand on your redeemed nature, has thus 
drawn to you also the loving eye of His Father, you can well 
dispense with the gaze and idle admiration of such as look 
only at the outward appearance, and not upon the heart. 


The writer next proceeds still further to strengthen his ex- 
hortation by citing the example of the most honored and hon- 
orable of the sex. ‘ For ¢hus’—by the possession and culture 
of this same ‘eck and quiet spirit, that I commend to you— 
‘thus of old did the holy women also, who hoped in God’—hope 
in God being in all ages cne sure mark of the true saint, and 
that which lifts the soul out of the snares and bondage of 
temporal things—‘ adorn themselves, submitting themselves’— 
as a necessary manifestation of that spirit, and as is now re- 
quired of you, their successors in the hope and sanctity of 
the everlasting. covenant—‘ Zo their own husbands. ὃ 


* Many, from Pagninus to Brown and Alford, supply κόσμῳ to ἀφϑάρτῳ, =the 
incorruptible ornament ; not, therefore, as our common version, in apposition with 
it. But the better construction is to take ἀφϑάρτῳ as a neuter adjective used for 
a noun, and so itself governing πυεύματος. 

it Selly, 97 τὸ: 1 Gray’s Elegy. 

ὃ Οὕτω γὰρ ποτὲ καὶ ai ἅγιαι γυναῖκες αἱ ἐλπίζουσαι ἐπὶ τὸν Θεὸν (Lachmann, 
Tischendorf, Alford, read εἰς Θεὸν) ἐκόσμουν ἑαυτὰς, ὑποτασσόμεναι KTA. Sin. 
inserts ἐκόσμ. ἑαυτ. before αἱ ἐλπ. 


[92 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 

Foremost in this group of venerable matrons stands the 
wife of him whom we of the Christian Church willingly revere 
as ‘the father of us all.’* She too, therefore, having been a 
partaker of his faith, may fitly claim recognition as the mother 
of ‘the Israel of God ;’} and, accordingly, her case, in this re- 
spect at least the most illustrious, is quoted particularly : ‘ds 7 
Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord?’ One occasion, on 
which she called him so, is recorded in Genesis, (18 : 12,) and 
may be here alluded to, but only as revealing in that one ex- 
pression the habitual tone and tenor of her wedded life.§ 
Whatever might be in other relations the imperfections of her 
character, in her loving loyalty and modest submission to her 
husband she was no unsuitable pattern for all her children, 
both those after the flesh, and those after the spirit. 

To the latter class belonged most of those to whom Peter 
was writing, and the phraseology he employs in this instance, 
as in so many others, was doubtless intended to certify his 
hearty acquiescence, as the Apostle of the circumcision, in the 
full adoption of the Gentile believers into all the dignities and 
privileges of the household of faith. What he says is, not ex- 
actly, ‘ Whose daughters ye are, so long as ye do well, but ra- 
ther this, ‘of whom ye are become children, while doing well.’ || 
Gentiles by nature though you are—obscure and base as may 
have been your lineage—you can now, as the friends and fol- 
lowers of Him whose day Sarah, as well as Abraham, rejoiced 
to see afar off, rightfully claim spiritual kindred with the old 
Hebrew princess, and in proof of this your filial relation—not 
as the condition of it—you perpetuate her moral likeness, and 


* Rom. 4: 16. ἵ 6]. δ᾽: τό. t Oc=as, for instance. 

§ The same thing is perhaps implied in the aorist from ὑπήκουσε, as if Sarah’s 
whole course as Abraham’s wife might be summed up in one act of obedience. 
De Wette compares 1 Cor. 9: 20 and Gal. 4: 8. Lachmann and Steiger, in- 
deed, read ὑπήκουεν after B,=the Vulgate obediebat, used to obey ; like ἐκόσμουν, 
used to adorn, of Vv. 5. 

|| ἧς ἐγενήϑητε τέκνα, ἀγαϑοποιοῦσαι. So the Vulgate est/s is changed in other 
Latin versions into facte estis. The Dutch note on geworden zijt of that version 
is: ‘That is, ye effectually show that ye are become; as John 15: 8.’ The ex- 
planation of ἐγενήϑητε as having the force of a future (Semler, Pott, and one or 
two others) is quite needlessly countenanced by Green’s remark: ‘It may be 
safely said that this peculiar case is the only one in which the-indicative mood ‘of 
this tense has any concern with future time.’ 


——- 


Lecture XVII—Chapter 3 : 1-7. 193 


reproduce in your lives whatever was graceful and excellent 
in hers, and is no less suitable to your own profession and 
prospects ; ‘ dozug well’ in every relation of life, and especially 
by the faithful discharge of these duties of the married life, 
‘and not fearing with any terror, or ‘not fearing any terror,* 
whether from your heathen husbands, or heathen neighbors, 
or any other quarter. While the Apostle would fain have the 
women of the Church to be womanly, he had no wish to see 
them effeminate, starting at vain alarms, indulging in hyste- 
rical excitements, or even dismayed in the presence of such 
real dangers as might meet them in their course of well-doing, 
and seek to scare them out of it. ‘ The meck and qutet spirit, 
that is so dear to God, is by no means the feeble, the listless, 
or the cowardly one. Nor is it any natural, but a gracious 
temper, springing from the peace of reconciliation, and from 
‘hope in God, and for that reason longing to please and glorify 
Him in the cheerful performance, and calm endurance, of His 
will. The effect of Divine grace in the soul of man or woman 
is, not at all to abate the force, or repress the activity, of any 
one of its powers, but on the contrary to strengthen, at the 
same time that it hallows, them all, and directs them, within 
the appropriate sphere of each individual, to the best results. 

And, in spite of all the dismal talk about Woman’s rights, 


* un φοβούμεναι μηδεμίαν πτόησιν. The objective interpretation of πτόησιν (in 
the New Testament only here) is favored by the Septuagint, Prov. 3 : 25, whence 
the Apostle seems to have taken both the phrase and the construction, and is given 
by the older English versions, and very many others.—Some (as Bengel, Burton, 
Halin, Brown) refer the latter half of this verse, ἀγαϑοποιοῦσαι x7A., along with 
ὑποτασσόμεναι, to ἐκόσμουν of v. 5, and treat what intervenes of v. 6 as parenthe- 
tical. But as, on the one hand, this leaves the statement, of whom ye.are become 
children, in a somewhat bald and abrupt isolation, so, on the other hand, the con- 
ditional, subjective μὴ . μηδεμίαν (not οὐ. ovdéuiav. Comp. p. 40, note** and p. 
382, note ἢ) would fitly introduce what might be properly assumed respecting 
those brought into, and still continuing to occupy, such a relation. For the same 
reason I connect the participles themselves, not with τέκνα, (in which case, in- 
deed, the gender would none the less be determined by the sense,) but imme- 
diately with the subject of the verb; and this is indicated above by the use of an 
intermediate particle, whz/e.—Whatever difficulty there may be in determining 
the meaning of the last clause is certainly not to be avoided by taking «ai as in- 
tensive : ‘ Zven when you fear nothing, and have nothing to fear’=‘ Do what is 
right, and that without the compulsion of fear ;’? the sense adopted by Schott- 
gen, Schleusner, Stolz, and a few older interpreters. 


194 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


by which not only Scripture teaching and example have been 
set at naught, but the common sense and feeling and patience 
of society have been outraged of late years, it remains as cer- 
tain as before, that the proper sphere of the woman—her 
sphere of duty, of safety, of honor and blessing for herself and 
others—is, in regard to her own husband, not one of rivalry, 
or resistance, but of willing, loving subordination. On this 
general topic, however, I shall reserve further remark, till after 
we have considered the duty of the husband, as stated in the 
next verse. 

Meanwhile let every woman that hears me understand unto 
what she too is called of God in the Gospel—even to an adorn- 
ing such as the mines of earth cannot purchase, for it is of 
God’s own jewels—to a nobility of rank, greater far than to 
have sprung from the loins of kings—to emulation with all 
holy women of past ages—to a hope in God, that will at once 
supply the most powerful motive to a beneficent life, the 
surest preservative against the fear of evil, and the strongest 
consolation in the hour of weakness and sorrow. It was the 
Virgin Mother, of a ‘meek and quiet spirit, who with other 
women like-minded, ‘stood’ with troubled, yea, pierced heart, 
yet steadfast and undaunted still, ‘ by the cross of Jesus, when 
His more boastful disciples ‘all forsook Him and fled’* Oh! 
how many Tabithas since that day have lived and died, ‘ full 
of good works and almsdeeds which they did!’ And of the 
noble army of martyrs not a small proportion has been drawn 
from the same ‘ highly favored’ sex ; which will probably be 
found at last to have furnished the vast majority of the saved. 

Behold, then, dear friends, the distinctions, holy and in- 
corruptible, to which you likewise, the mothers and daughters 
here present, are invited to aspire. Turn not from them and 
pass away, till you have at least brought yourselves to think 
seriously, whether the world and its fleeting fashion can 
produce aught worthier of your ambition, or that will even 
bear comparison with them. 


* Luke 2:35; John 19 : 25; Matt. 26 : 56. Tt Acts 9 : 36. 
¢ Luke 1: 28, 


EGBCT URE Nd LLL. 


---Φ-- 


MEI RAG Ei ee aie 


‘ LIKEWISE, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands ; that, if any 
obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation 
of the wives; while they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. 
Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of 
wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel ; but let it be the hidden man of the 
heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet 
spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. For after this manner in the 
old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being 
in subjection unto their own husbands : even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling 
him lord: whose daughters ye are as Iong as ye do well, and are not afraid with 
any amazement. Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to know- 
ledge, giving honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs 
together of the grace of life ; that your prayers be not hindered.’ 


In resuming the consideration of this passage, I propose 
first to examine what is said to husbands in the 7th verse, 
and then to confirm and illustrate Peter's statement of the 
relative duties both of husbands and wives from the larger 
teachings of Paul. 


The construction and interpretation of the 7th verse are 
not free from difficulty. How, for instance, is the wife’s 
inferiority in strength a reason why honor should be given to 
her? This question has sometimes been met by referring to 
1 Cor. 12 : 22-24, where the Apostle speaks of our ‘ bestow- 
ing more abundant honor’ on such members of the body as 
‘seem to be more feeble, and are accounted ‘less honor- 
able. But we shall get a better solution, I think, as well as 
a more satisfactory idea of the whole sentence, by rearrang- 
ing the clauses, as is now commonly done, in this way: 


196 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


‘ Ve husbands, likewise’—for neither must you fancy that you 
are lawless, independent despots; you, too, are under obliga- 
tions no less strict to your wives—‘ dwell according to know- 
ledge with the female vessel as the weaker, yielding them honor, 
as being also heirs with them of the grace of life; that your 
prayers be not hindered. * 

It is common in Scripture to represent all the creatures as 
God’s instruments or vessels. They belong to Him, having 
been created by Him for His own use and glory, and contain- 
ing no more of what is good and valuable than He puts into 
them. And in a very special manner is this true of the 
children of His grace—‘the vessels of mercy,’ as they are 
expressly called.j . In this class are included men and women 
alike, there being neither male nor female in Christ Jesus. 
But this gracious equality by no means subverts the original 
constitution of nature; and so the inspired writer speaks, as 
of a thing that may be taken for granted, of the female 
as the weaker vessel. This he does certainly, without in- 
tending thereby the slightest disparagement or offence to 
the sex, or to any particularly strong-minded or strong-bodied 
member of it. It is no insult to the vine to say, that it is 
weaker than the tree to which it clings; or to the rose to 
say, that it is weaker than the bush that bears it. The 
strongest things are not always therefore the best—either 
the most beautiful or the most useful. 


* οἱ ἄνδρες ὁμοίως, συνοικοῦντες (in the New Testament, only here. Here, too, 
Sin. substitutes συνομιλοῦντες, and omits κατὰ γνῶσιν. For the syntax, see p. 
347, note 1) κατὰ γνῶσιν, ὡς ἀσϑενεστέρῳ σκεύει τῷ γυναικείῳ, ἀπονέμοντες (the 
last two words also do not occur elsewhere in the New Testament) τιμὴν, ὡς καὶ 
(transposed and mistranslated in the common version. Comp. p. 186, note §) 
συγκληρονόμοι (Stephens, Tischendorf, and some others, read συγκληρονόμοις, 
after Sin. [which adds ποικίλης before χάριτος,] the Vulgate, and some Fathers 
and cursive MSS.,—heirs with you.) χάριτος ζωῆς, κτλ. Strictly, σκεύει belongs 
to ἀσϑενεστέρῳ, not to γυναικείῳ ; nor is it governed immediately by συνοικοῦντες, 
but stands in apposition with another σκεύει understood to γυναικείῳ ;=dwell 
with, as the weaker vessel, the female. Our translators followed the older Eng- 
lish versions, Luther, Erasmus, etc. : 

+ oketoc—d>py. See Acts : 15; Rom.9 : 21-23; 2Cor.4: 7; 2 Tim. 2 : 20, 
iis “ADS metaphor is not, as some have supposed, applied in our text to the wife 
on the ground of her relation to the husband. The mention of her as the weaker 
vessel shows that he too is thought of under the same figure. 


Lecture X VITT—Chapter 3: 1-7. 197 


And now mark the kindly purpose of this allusion to the 
wife’s comparative weakness. Assuming also that husbands 
and wives do dwell together in close and life-long union, the 
exhortation then is, that ‘husbands dwell according to know- 
ledge with the female vessel as the weaker ;’ knowledge, we 
might say, of whatever it becomes a Christian man to know, 
but especially and more immediately knowledge of the facts 
about the wife that are mentioned in this verse. There 
is first the fact of this very weakness of the woman, the 
knowledge of which,* so far from tempting the man to a 
rude or tyrannical exercise of his superior strength, should 
rather engage that strength for her shelter and defence, 
and operate as a perpetual appeal for a patient and tender 
forbearance toward even her faults and failures. And, 
alongside of this, there is the far greater fact, that, be her 
weakness what it may, she is none the less on that account, 
but equally with the man himself, a ‘vessel’ in the house 
of the Lord. Nay, if it be his own highest dignity, to be 
an ‘heir of the grace of life’—an heir, that is, of ‘the grace 
coming to us,’ as our Apostle had described it in the first 
chapter, ‘at the revelation of Jesus Christ, and which un- 
speakable gift of God’s favor to this world of sin and death 
shall consist of life, life in the full sense of the blessed word, 
life perfect and eternal and Divine—if, indeed, it is for this 
that the Christian husband is waiting, as the loftiest attain- 
ment of which his nature is capable, then let him remember 
that even in this also he is but the fellow-heir of his Christian 
wife, or else that she, even if now an unbeliever, may yet be 
a fellow-heir with him. And what influence shall ¢#zs know- 
ledge have on his bearing toward her? Not only ‘does the 
hope of eternal glory make men generous and gentle,} but, 
wherever God puts so great honor on any child of the dust, 
though it be the meanest of beggars or slaves, all who partake 
of that hope will not fail to ‘yzeld honor? And how much 


* The Greek arrangement (for which see p. 196, note *) seems designed, not 
merely to give emphasis to ἀσϑενεστέρῳ σκεύει, (Huther,) but to bring this into 
closest connection with κατὰ γνῶσιν. 

+ Bengel: ‘Gloriz aternze spes facit generosos et mites’—understanding the 
joint heirship to be that of all believers. 


198 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


more freely and gladly will they yield it, when they with 
whom the hope is shared are even now the partners of their 
bosom! You thus perceive that what is required to secure 
the right discharge of the husband’s part, is simply that he 
‘dwell with’ his wife ‘ according to knowledge.’ 

And then, as a motive to all this, at once weighty and beau- 
tiful, it is added: ‘that your prayers be not hindered’* By 
some this is understood as enforcing what has been said to 
wives, as well as to husbands, and it may no doubt be fitly 
used in that way. But, as it lies in the text, it is addressed 
directly to husbands; though, since they, as such, are the 
heads and priests of their families, there may still be a spe- 
cial reference to family prayers, or to prayers with and for 
their wives. 

Speaking generally, however, the Christian, while in this 
world, has no more precious interest to look after than his 
prayers—none which it more behoves him to maintain in 
healthful and unobstructed efficiency. And that which hin- 
ders prayer, whether we regard the spirit and habit of it, or 
its prevalence with God, is sin. Nay, the wilful indulgence 
in a course of sinning, in, any direction whatever, is clearly 
incompatible with the devotional spirit, and must paralyze, or, 
as some take the Apostle’s word to be, cut off, the soul’s com- 
munications with the mercy-seat—the source of its life, and 
strength, and Ἰογ Nor again is there any one social sin 
that more directly tends to this fatal result, than the disre- 
gard and violation of what a man owes in that tenderest of 
all -his social relations—his relation to his wife. 


But the true nature of that relation, and what it involves 
of duty and of blessing for both parties, will be better under- 
stood, if we extend our view, as was proposed, in the second 
place, to Paul’s general treatment of the same topic.t 

This, you will find, turns mainly on the analogy, presented 


* For éy-(Sin.: ἐν-)-κόπτεσϑαι, to be cut into, hindered, some (Erasmus, Ste- 
phens, Beza, Tischendorf) read ἐκκόπτεσϑαι, to be cut out or off. 

t Comp. on ch. 4: 7. 

t See 1 Cor.6: 16,17; 11: 3-16; 14: 34, 35; Eph. 5 : 22-33; Col. 3: 18, 
TOs et τας 2.: i—l4 sete 5. 


Lecture XVITI—Chapter 3: 1-7. 199 


by the marriage relation to the relation existing between 
Christ and the Church. In the very beginning, as Paul 
plainly intimates, the latter ‘great mystery,’ being itself the 
ultimate purpose of God in creatjon, was symbolized and fore- 
shadowed, when ‘the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall 
upon Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and 
closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib, which the 
Lord God had taken from man, made He a woman, and 
brought her unto the man. And Adam said: This is now 
bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called 
Woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall 
a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto 
his wife: and they shall be one*flesh.* Marvellous type, 
indeed, of the yet more marvellous unity in which the Church 
stands with her Lord! She too has been taken from the 
pierced side of the Second Adam, the Slumberer in Joseph’s 
sepulchre. Of His resurrection-life it is that she partakes, 
for He, the Living One, liveth in her; and her peerless des- 
tiny is to sit for ever on His throne, queen of the new crea- 
tion of God. So perfectly is she even now joined unto the 
Lord, that she is one spirit with Him; and not only so, but 
in language, whose glowing energy thrills the heart of faith, 
however dimly the understanding may discern its precise im- 
port, we are members of His body, being of His flesh and of 
His bones.f Ina word, Christ is the Head of the Church, 
and the Church is His body. In that mystical union we be- 
hold, on the one hand, the glorious counterpart and consum- 
mation of God's work and way of old, when in the garden of 
Eden He first formed Eve out of Adam, and then gave her 
to him for a help-meet. And, on the other hand, we are at 
the same time taught to recognize in it the sublime idea—the 
Divine model—of the conjugal relation. 

For you will now mark the use Paul makes of both these 
dispensations, and of other facts belonging to them, in the 
way of illustrating the nature and obligations of marriage. 

The wedded pair he regards as not so much united, as iden- 


* Gen. 2 : 21-24. 
t Eph. 5 : 30, μέλη ἐσμὲν τοῦ σώματος αὐτοῦ, é x τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτου καὶ ἐκ τῶν 
ὀστέων αὐτοῦ. 


200 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


tified, in person and life ; and to the same effect, you will re- 
member, our Lord himself had argued with the Pharisees ;* 
yet so identified, as that their individual characteristics, while 
combining to form one symmetrical whole, do still preserve 
all their original distinctiveness. The head of every man is 
Christ; and the head of the woman is the man. The man is 
the more immediate and complete image and glory of God, 
not merely as being endowed, like the woman, with a rational 
and moral and immortal nature, but as also reflecting and ex- 
ercising in this lower world the Divine authority and rule: 
but the woman, in this latter respect especially, is the glory 
of the man, and shines in his light. The record at once of 
the creation and of the fall proclaims her dependence and 
subordination. For there it appears, that Adam was first 
formed, then Eve: that the man is not of, or from,y the 
woman ; but the woman of the man: that the man was not 
created for the woman, or on her account ;¢ but the woman 
for the man: that Adam, though over-persuaded by her whom 
he loved, was not, like her, deceived by the tempter; but the 
woman being deceived was in the transgression : and, finally, 
that in the sentence pronounced on the woman there was a 
solemn ratification, by the voice of the Creator and Judge of 
both, of her husband’s rule over her. 

By these various considerations, all of them drawn from the 
2d and 3d chapters of Genesis, does the great Apostle confirm 
his conclusion, that, as the Church is subjéct unto Christ, so 
are the wives to be to their own husbands in every thing— 
in every thing, whereby a good conscience toward God and 
toward man is not violated. And this decision he was ever 
most earnest and explicit in declaring to the churches, as one 
fundamental and essential law of the domestic life. Thus, to 
the Corinthians he says: ‘Let your women keep silence in 
the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak ; 
but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith 
the law.’ To the Ephesians he writes, ‘ Wives, submit your- 
selves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord ;’ which is 
as if he had said: This particular duty of that station, which 


* Matt. 19 : 3-9. Tt ἐκ. $ διὰ τὴν γυναῖκα. 


Lecture X VI1I—Chapter 3 : 1-7. 201 


has been assigned to you by the God of nature, you, as 
Christian women, are expected to fulfil with a more cheerful 
alacrity in the knowledge and daily remembrance, that you 
are thus honoring and serving the Lord Christ. And, with a 
like regard to this higher aspect of the matter, it is said to 
the Colossians: ‘Wives, submit yourselves unto your own 
husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.’ Even in what are called 
the Pastoral Epistles there is a no less frank and peremptory 
enforcement of this doctrine, as one which the Christian 
ministry must by no means withhold from the churches. ‘ Let 
the woman,’ says Paul to Timothy, ‘learn in silence with all 
subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp 
authority over the man, but to be in silence.’ And so Titus 
also is required to see that the young women be instructed in 
the duty of ‘obedience to their own husbands, that the word 
of God be not blasphemed,’ that is, evil-spoken of, as intro- 
ducing disorder into families. 

If, then, we are willing that the word of God shall decide 
this question, there can, it is obvious, be no difficulty about it 
whatever, and, except in so far as the natural instincts of wo- 
man, quite as much as of man, must suffer offence, we shall 
be in little danger of being disturbed by any shrill outcry 
about what is ignorantly claimed as her emancipation from an 
unjust and degrading thraldom—to wit, the assertion and vin- 
dication of her equal household prerogative with her husband. 

But while, as a theory, the unscriptural extravagance might 
be generally repudiated, I am not at all sure that the Divine 
order of marriage, on the side now under consideration, is 
quite as generally honored either in feeling or practice. The 
incidental infractions of it are thought of rather as incongru- 
ities, or whimsical violations of good taste, than as a serious 
immorality. The tendency also of modern legislation has in 
several instances been to foster the idea of separate interests 
where all interests are so peculiarly one—as truly one, as be- 
tween God and His Christ, or between Christ and His Church. 
How often even at the family altar is prayer offered, by a 
miserable barbarism of speech, for ‘the united head !’—a mon- 
strosity surely unknown in the economy of the universe. ‘The 


202 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is 
the man ; and the head of Christ is God.’ 

Let us know, that God’s way is ever the best. It is simply 
impossible for any woman, however superior, it may very pos- 
sibly be, to her husband in intelligence and general character, 
thus to affect a domestic equality with him, without to the 
same extent compromising the real dignity and happiness 
both of herself and of the entire household. Many a mother 
has wept bitter tears over lawless children, who began by 
‘imitating her own example as a wife. 

And what inferences, we must finally inquire, does Paul, 
the unmarried Apostle, draw from his great premises, with re- 
gard to the duty of the husband? To this question it will be 
‘the best and sufficient answer, merely to recite to you his own 
magnificent language. It is little to say, that, in the weari- 
some tirades of the self-styled champions of woman, there is 
nothing that, in the estimation of any sane mind, will compare 
with it for chivalrous devotion, and a sublime, persuasive ten- 
derness : 

‘ Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.’ 
In all your intercourse with them, beware of sharpness and 
severity of speech or demeanor, and think far less of exercis- 
ing your authority than of showing your love. Even in times 
of provocation, be not hasty or cruel in your anger. Forget 
not their comparative frailty, and let your strength be seen 
in its enabling you to subdue the temptations to a violent 
acerbity. Let the patience of an unalterable love still have 
its perfect work, and overcome evil with good. 

Such is the tone of the brief address to husbands in the 
Epistle to the Colossians, (3 : 19.) But the passage, to which 
I meant to refer you, is the larger and more impassioned one 
in that to the Ephesians, (5 : 25-33:) ‘ Husbands, love your 
wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Him- 
self for it; that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the 
washing of water by the word, that He might present it to 
Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any 
such thing ; but that it should be holy and without blemish. 
So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies ;’ he 


Lecture X VIIT—Chapter 3 : 1-7. 203 


does not mean, as much as they love their own bodies, but, as 
‘being their own bodies—part of themselves. This is plain 
from what immediately follows: ‘He that loveth his wife lov- 
eth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh ; but 
nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church ; 
for ’—lest you should suppose that the illustration fails to jus- 
tify this strong statement of the marriage unity—‘we are 
members of His body, being of His flesh, and of His bones. 
For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother, 
and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one 
flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning 
Christ and the Church. Nevertheless, let every one of you in 
particular so love his wife even as himself’—there again 
meaning, not, as much as himself, but, as being himself—‘ part 
of his soul, his other half.’ * 

The true measure and model of marital love, therefore, is | 
the self-sacrificing, unchangeable love of the Lord Jesus. 
That is, indeed, a standard of which every other love must 
come infinitely short. But none the less certain is it, that, for 
any one who knows the love of Christ, the exhibition of that 
love, as the highest example of the very kind of love that he 
himself owes to his wife, at once lifts the whole subject into a 
sphere of sanctity and obligation, such as the infidel flatterers 
of woman never dreamed of. No man, who on the one side 
glories in his subjection to Christ, and in his absolute and 
everlasting dependence on Christ’s love, can possibly suffer, 
on the other side, his own limited and temporary authority as 
a husband to degenerate into a tyranny. And, accordingly, 
we may boldly ask, Where but in the Church, and in Chris- 
tian lands, has woman ever risen into her rightful place of 
security and dignity by the side of man—his most cherished 
companion, and ‘individual solace dear, * in the pilgrimage of 
this world, and his fellow-heir of the kingdom of Christ and 
of God ? ᾿ 

The sum of the matter, then, as it regards the reciprocal 
duties of the husband and the wife, may be given in the 


* Milton, Paradise Lost, iv. 487, 488. 


204 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


words of Bishop Taylor: ‘The man’s authority is love, and the 
woman’s love is obedience ;’* or of Archbishop Leighton: 
‘There all will hold right, where love commands, and love 
obeys.’ 


* The Marriage Ring. 


LE ZGTURE IX 


----. ἡ.---.- 
1 PETER 3: 8-12. 


‘ FINALLY, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as 
brethren, be pitiful, be courteous: not rendering evil for evil, or railing for rail- 
ing: but contrariwise blessing ; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye 
should inherit a blessing. For he that.will love life, and see good days, let him 
refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile: let him eschew 
evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and ensue it. For the eyes of the Lord 
are over the righteous, and His ears are open unto their prayers : but the face of 
the Lord is against them that do evil.’ : 


To the special instructions addressed in the previous con- 
text to subjects, servants, wives, and husbands, the Apostle 
now subjoins certain general precepts applicable to all classes 
alike, and the observance of which was no less essential to 
the completeness of their Christian character, and to the in- 
fluential, comeliness of their walk among the Gentiles, (ch. 
a 6 


‘ Finally, or, But finally +—not to particularize + further— 
let me sum up the whole in a few words—‘ be ye a// of one 
mind, or, be all like-minded § This is that minding the same 
thing—the being perfectly joined together in the same mind 
and in the same judgment—which Paul ever enjoins on the 
churches, and for which he prays on their behalf, as a most 
precious gift of God.|| In the present case, and perhaps gen- 


* See p. 347, note I. + τὸ δὲ τέλος. 

+ CEcumenius ; 7? χρὴ ἰδιολογξισϑαι ; 

8 6u6¢povec—in the New Testament only here. 

| Rom. 12:: 163; 15:5; 2 Cor. 13: 115; Phil. 2:2; 3:15, (Received Text. 
In all these places the phrase is τὸ αὐτὸ---τὸ ἕν---φρονξιν ;) 1 Cor. 1 : 10; Eph. 


423. 


206 Lectures on the Furst Epistle of Peter. 


erally, it is not so much agreement in doctrinal views that is 
intended, as that unanimity of many hearts, which springs 
from the sense of a common origin, from common relations, 
and interests, and aims, and hopes. It is such a like- 
mindedness as you would expect to find among the members 
of one family, or as when an entire community is stirred and 
swayed by the same impulses of patriotism. Yea, much 
rather might this harmony of feeling be looked for among 
the citizens of the heavenly country—the children of the 
household of faith. How many, how sacred, how strong, are 
the bonds that unite them! Discordant as may have been 
their religious associations in times past, now they can all 
say: ‘To us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are 
all things and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by 
whom are all things, and we by Him. In like manner, all 
diversities of outward circumstances disappear before the 
dignity of their one high calling of God in Christ Jesus, and 
in the brightness of the one hope of their calling. Rescued 
from a common ruin, and still beset by the same enemies, 
they are heirs together of the common salvation. They all 
eat the same spiritual meat, and all drink the same spiritual 
drink ; and not only while in this world, but throughout eter- 
nal ages, the one chief end of their being, and controlling 
purpose of their hearts, is to glorify God their Redeemer in 
their bodies and their spirits, which are His.* 

It cannot surely be difficult, one would think, for those, of 
whom all this is true, to dwell together in the unity of 
brethren, or, as Paul expresses it, to ‘keep the unity of the 
Spirit in the bond of peace,’ while ‘ with one mind and one 
mouth they glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ.’ And yet, alas! we do all know too well that the 
actual, historical Church has in this as in other respects ever 
fallen far short of her own ideal. The intrusion within her 
pale of multitudes of unrenewed men, and the clinging im- 
perfections of her own true children, sufficiently account for 
the sad discrepancy. Already in the Apostolic age appeared 


FNC ob 6/265 δ: 0} τοὺς 5:4; Eph. 4 : 4-6; Jude 3. 
1 Bs, 133.2 15 Eph. 4: 35 Roms. ἃ: 


Lecture XIX.—Chapter 3 : 8-12. 207 


many ominous symptoms of that spirit of dissension and 
alienation, which has since run riot in Christendom. And 
hence the frequency with which in the New Testament it is 
met by sharp rebuke, and solemn warning, while the duty of 
a gracious concord is everywhere inculcated on the followers 
of the Lamb, as essential to their own mutual edification, and 
to the salutary influence of their profession on the world 
around. ‘Be all like-minded’—all cherishing the mind 
which was also in Christ Jesus.* Ye all call Him Master 
and Lord. In all He is formed, the hope of glory. To His 
image it is the holy ambition of all, to be perfectly and for 
ever assimilated. And even now your highest boast and 
blessedness is to live under the constraining power of His 
love, who died for all, as, forgetting those things which are 
behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are be- 
fore, ye all press toward the mark for the heavenly prize. 
What, brethren, are all the points in which you differ, or can 
differ, compared with those in which you agree, and must 
ever agree? See, then, that ye ‘be αὐ like-minded. Or, to 
use again Paul’s urgent words: ‘ Let us, therefore, as many as 
be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be other- 
wise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Never- 
theless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the 
same rule, let us mind the same thing.’ 


As a natural fruit of this like-mindedness among Christians, 
it is next expected of them that they ‘ave compassion one of 
another, or, if we borrow the single expression of the original, 
that they be sympathetic.{ By this the writer intends more 
than is conveyed by the phrase in our English version. That 
is at once understood as referring to a reciprocal sympathy 
merely in each other’s trials and scrrows ; whereas the Apos- 
tle contemplates a general fellow-feeling with our brethren in 
whatever concerns them for weal or woe—such a steady, 
hearty, generous interest in ‘the things of others,’ as prompts 


* Phil. 2 : 5, (τοῦτο γὰρ φρονείσϑω ἐν ὑμῖν ὃ καὶ ἐν X’. 1.) 

1 John: 13 :.13; Gali 4. 10: Col 1:27; Rom. 8:29; 2 Cor. 5:14; Phil: 
3 : 13-16, (in this passage φρονξιν is the word employed again and again to ex- 
press the whole frame and bent of the soul.) 

£ ovpradésc—in the New Testament only here. 


208 Lectures on the Furst Epistle of Peter. 


a man to ‘rejoice with them that do rejoice, and to weep with 
them that weep.’ Very beautiful is such a spirit, wherever it 
is seen; and it sometimes is seen even in those who do not 
profess to have learned of Christ. All the more to be re- 
gretted is it, that, of those who so profess, many fail to exem- 
plify it. They look only on their ‘own things.’ Lazarus is 
laid at their gate, hungry and full of sores; or he sits down 
with them at the table of the Lord. But in either case they 
strive to be, or to appear, unconscious of his presence. And 
what further trouble they take in the affairs of others is pro- 
bably to depreciate their merit and disparage their successes. 
Surely, in claiming to be living members of the one body 
whose Head is the Saviour of the world, these persons de- 
ceive themselves more than they do any one else. They 
have at least strangely forgotten, if they ever knew, that first 
law of the spiritual, as of the natural, organization, ‘that the 
members should have the same care one for another. And 
whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; 
or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it.’ * 
The oneness of life that pervades the whole should of itself 
insure this result. 


And it is substantially the same duty that is enforced, un- 
der.a more specific form, when it is added, ‘ love as brethren. 
Here again Peter uses but one word, as if we should say, 
Philadelphians or brother-loving ; + thus appealing once more 
(ch. I : 22; 2:17) to one of the deepest instincts of the new 
creature—that by which the children of God recognize in 
each other a heavenly kindred. There is, indeed, the brother- 
hood of a common humanity, and on the strength of that we 
are bound to love all men, even our enemies. But the bro- 
therly love of Christians to one another is a tenderer and 
more domestic affection, as of those who dwell together in 
the constant and intimate and more confidential charities of 
home. In one place, accordingly, it is said, ‘Let love be 
without dissimulation ;’ and then it presently follows, ‘ Be 


* Rom. 12 2,15; Phil. 2:4; Luke 16: 20; 1 Cor. 12 : 25, 26: 
T ¢cAdadeAgor—in the New Testament only here. 


Lecture XIX —Chapter 3 : 8-12. 209 


kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love ;’* that 
being something ‘as distinct,’.says Dr. Chalmers on that text, 
‘from general love or charity in the moral, as the magnetic 
attraction is from the general attraction of gravity in the ma- 
terial, world.’ 


‘Be pitiful, adds Peter, or tender-hearted, as the same 
word f is rendered in the only other place where it occurs in 
the New Testament, (Eph. 4: 32.) And in both places it 
expresses the feeling that becomes Christians in the presence 
of suffering, whether of their fellow-men, or of fellow-Chris- 
tians. In the latter case, not only were there strong addi- 
tional motives for the indulgence and manifestation of this 
feeling ; there was also in the perilous and trying condition 
of the Church in that age more frequent occasion for it. Of 
all religions, however, Christianity is the religion of love, and 
love ‘is kind’ t—kind especially to those in distress, whatever 
in other respects be their circumstances or their character. 
‘Put on, therefore,’ says Paul to the Colossians, (3 : 12,) ‘as 
the elect of God’—as a dress or ornament peculiarly befitting 
your calling and profession—‘ bowels of mercy, kindness ;’§ 
and the innumerable institutions for the relief of every de- 
scription of human woe, that cover the face of Christendom, 
are now, and have been for ages, but one form of her reply to 
that appeal. 


The next injunction, ‘ be courteous ’—according to our Eng- 
lish version—would seem to refer immediately to the outward 
social manners, as the expression, no doubt, of the inward dis- 
position ; whereas the word so rendered, and which in the 
New Testament does not occur elsewhere, points primarily to 
the inward disposition itself. It really means kindly-minded, 
benevolent ; || and this again, in connection with the rest of 
the verse, might be regarded as tautological. But the objec- 
tion is obviated by a change of reading, which, as being am- 
ply sustained by the manuscripts, has long been adopted by all 


* Rom. 12.: 9, 10. ἱ εὔσπλαγχνος. rr ji (Cole, ἅ.7.: AL 

ὃ σπλάγχνα οἰκτιρμοῦ, (the reading now generally received.) 

{| φιλόφρονες. The above remark applies equally to the adverbial form in Acts 
AAG) 


210 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 
r 

the critical editors.* This would be represented by Azsmble- 
minded; and then the whole verse might stand thus, ‘ Buz 
finally, be all like-minded, sympathizing, brotherly, tender- 
hearted, humble-minded ;’ a combination and order of graces, 
which still keep us in mind of a passage already adverted to: 
‘Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bow- 
els of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind.’+ Nor is the 
arrangement altogether an arbitrary one. As nothing more 
unfits a man for any kindly consideration of others than an 
overweening estimate of himself, so. the lowliness of heart 
which is produced by genuine repentance, and the experience 
of God’s saving mercy in Christ, though it has never been al- 
lowed a place on the scale of natural ethics, is not only itself 
of great price in the sight of God, but by far the best soil for 
the culture of the social virtues. More effectually than any, 
even the highest, degree of proficiency in the arts of civilized 
life, it softens and subdues a selfish and arrogant rudeness, 
whether of temper or of manner, and makes a man gentle 
and tender, forbearing and compassionate, in his intercourse 
with his fellows. In this regard alone, therefore, there is 
reason enough why, in the school of evangelical morality, so 
prominent a rank is ever assigned to humility. Itis the very 
clasp, so to speak, that binds on the new creature the lovely, 
encompassing zone of all Christian graces. The mention of 
it here, as something incumbent alike on every individual in 
the communion of the church, accords well with the spirit of 
the preceding addresses to different classes of the faithful, 
and forms also, you will observe, a suitable link of transition 
to what immediately follows. 


‘Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing. The 
slaves, you remember, had already been reminded of the ex- 
ample which Christ Himself had set them of such a patient 
endurance of wrong, (ch. 2 : 23.) But the lesson was one for 
all Christians, at a time when violence and calumny were the 
lot of all. These they were, equally with the slaves, forbidden 


* rarewvoppovec, (Sin. A, B, C, etc. Not found elsewhere in the New Testa- 
ment.) 
t Col. 3°: 12, Ἐ Comp. on ch. 5: 5. 


Lecture XIX.—Chapter 3 : 8-12. 211 


to repay in kind. And this not so much from motives of an 
ordinary prudence, lest a vindictive retaliation should only 
provoke severer treatment; but because of its essential in- 
compatibility with the Christian calling and destiny. Mark 
the beautiful retribution now recommended to his brethren 
by him, who formerly ‘stretched out his hand, and drew his 
sword, and struck a servant of the high-priest, and smote off 
his ear,’ besides answering the taunts of the bystanders with 
cursing :* ‘but contrariwise’—on the contrary,} in directest 
opposition to these impulses of the flesh— d/essing’—invok- 
ing, that is, God’s blessing on your persecutors and revilers, 
that their sin may be forgiven, their hearts changed, and they 
themselves made partakers of all that is most dear to you. 
As if he had said: By nothing short of this noblest style of 
revenge can you fulfil the precept, or fully imitate the example, 
of the Master. And in case that example were thought too 
lofty for imitation, Peter might have added: ‘Be ye followers 
of me, even as I also am of Christ.’ What Paul testified of 
himself and the Apostles generally was true, we have no rea- 
son to doubt, of the writer of this epistle: ‘Being reviled, we 
bless ; being persecuted, we suffer it; being defamed, we en- 
treat. t 


But let us rather attend to the particular consideration by 
which this distinctive rule of the Christian life is here actually 
enforced. ‘ Knowing that’—or simply, as some read, because ὃ 
—‘unto this ye were called’ ||—at the time when ye heard and 
obeyed the voice of God in the Gospel of His Son—‘¢hat ye 
should inherit blessing’**—only blessing—effectual, permanent 
blessing—the unmingled fulness of the blessing of grace. 

And how, it may be asked, does this bear on the point in 
hand—the duty, namely, of returning good for evil, blessing 
for cursing? This question has been answered in two ways. 


* Matt. 26 : 51, 74. ἱ τοὐναντίον. 

HeTRC τ 47: 12) 13 ὙΠ ΉΙ: 

§ Wells, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Theile, Alford, cancel εἰδότες, (according to 
Sin. A, B, C, J, and ancient versions.) 

|| As in ch. 2 : 21. See p. 173, note*. 
** Comp. the common version of Heb. 6 : 7; James 3 10, etc. 


212 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


Some* would explain the matter thus: ‘ Zo this were ye 
called’—to the work of blessing others, even such as hate 
and abuse you; precisely this was your appointed task—‘ zx 
order that, as the issue and reward of such a course of con- 
duct, ‘ye might inherit blessing’ Your own future happiness, 
therefore, as God’s sons and heirs, depends on your compli- 
ance with this injunction. 

The other explanation is to this effect: ‘ Zo this were ye 
called’—the very design and end of your calling was this, 
namely, ‘that ye might inherit blessing. By nature ye were 
enemies and ‘children of wrath, even as others. But God, 
who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved 
you, even when ye were dead in sins,’ called you, ‘not to 
wrath,’ but to blessing—blessing here, and especially blessing 
hereafter. And will you now deal in wrath with your ene- 
mies? Nay, let the grace which you have so largely and 
freely received overflow freely to them. Blessing them, you 
will show yourselves the children of blessing—‘ the children 
of your Father which is in heaven: for He maketh His sun 
to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just 
and on the unjust.’+ This I believe to be the more common 
understanding of the connection, and I think also that it 
yields a finer and more generous sense.f 


The general exhortations that we have now considered of 
the 8th and oth verses are confirmed in the three verses that 
follow by a quotation from the 34th Psalm—(vs. 12-16)— 
taken, as is common with our Apostle, with slight variations, 
and without any formality of reference, from the version of 
the Seventy. 

Of these variations the most important occurs in the 1oth 
verse, which, as it appears in the Hebrew, might be rendered 
thus, ‘Who zs the man that desireth life, loving days to see 
good ?’ and, as given in that Greek translation with which the 


* Calvin, De Wette, Briickner, and others. 

| Eph. 2: 3-5; 1 Thess. 5:9; Matt.5:45; 10: 8. 

1 Leighton would combine the two methods, and make εἰς τοῦτο (unto this) 
refer both backward to the duty and forward to the inheritance. But this is 
scarcely practicable. 


Lecture XIX —Chapter 3 : 8-12. 213 


New Testament writers seem to have been quite as familiar, 
thus: ‘Who is the man that desireth life, loving to see good 
days?’ Now there has been a great deal of superfluous in- 
genuity expended on attempts to make the phraseology of the 
first clause before us, ‘he that will love life, strictly equivalent 
to the simple, he that desireth life, of the original ; whereas 
the rather peculiar expression that Peter employs seems really 
to have been framed for the very purpose of conveying an 
idea somewhat more emphatic: ‘he that will love life’—de- 
sires to do so—is in earnest in his wish and purpose and en- 
deavor to do so—of course, from finding life a season of pros- 
perity and enjoyment ;* instead of hating it, as so many 
almost come to do, for its vexations.— That this, indeed, is 
the way, in which the wish to love life is to be gratified, is at 
once explained by the next clause, which itself needs no ex- 
planation: ‘and see good days. And then comes what we 
may call the Divine directory for the attainment of that at 
which all men are, however blindly, aiming, to wit, a happy 
life. This is summed up in four particulars. 

First, ‘let him refrain’—make to cease, restraint—< his 
tongue from evil, and his lips from speaking guile ;’ § from evil 
of every kind, whether in the way of profane, or slanderous, 


* There is not the least occasion, therefore, for fancying a corruption of the 
text, (Piscator, Grotius, Semler, Carpzov, and others ;) or for changing the con- 
struction into long after life and loveth to see, (Syriac, the older English versions, 
and others,) or into wshes and loves, (Estius and others ;) or for making ϑέλὼών 
ζωὴν ἀγαπᾷν a pleonasm for ϑέλων ζωήν, (Luther, Pott,) or ἀγαπῶν ζωήν, (Pott’s 
other suggestion ;) or for regarding the participle, (Estius, ‘ Quz diligendo dilicit, 
id est, vehementer diligit, ) or the infinitive, (Augusti, Grashof, Stier, would fain 
live long, ) as merely adverbial or intensive ; or for explaining ἀγαπᾷν as=fo enjoy, 
(Guyse, Macknight, Bloomfield, Brown, and others,) or 20 show ove, (De Wette ;) 
etc. 

1 Gen: 27/2 40: JObi : Ty etc) Hcela2 17: 

ἱ παυσάτω. 

§ The words, ἀπό κακοῦ, καὶ χείλη. τοῦ μὴ λαλῇσαι δόλον, are taken from the 
Sept. Ps. 34 : 13, where the original Hebrew repeats the preposition before the 
infinitive. And as, moreover, the common classical construction of παύω with a 
simple genitive of the thing from which (comp. Luke 4 : 42, etc.) is employed else- 
where by our Apostle, (ch. 4 : 1; comp. 2 Pet. 2 : 14,) it need not be shunned here. 
Nor is the pleonastic μή at all an objection, (see Winer, p. 532.) The old English 
and other versions adopt the form of the Syriac and Vulgate: et labia cjus ne 
loguantur dolum.—Lachmann and Tischendorf cancel each αὐτοῦ, (after A, B, C. 
—Sin. omits only the second.) 


214 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


or impure, or merely idle and unprofitable discourse ; and, in 
particular, from all untruthfulness of speech, ‘a lying tongue’ 
being one of the things that are especially hateful to the God 
of truth.* If you have never purposely examined the mat- 
ter, you would perhaps be surprised to find how frequent and 
full and vehement Scripture is in its denunciation of the sins 
of the tongue. ‘Out of the abundance of the heart the 
mouth speaketh,’ that being the outlet by which the teem- 
ing soul of man most readily utters itself according to its 
kind. And hence, in that terrible description in the Epistle 
of James, (3 : 2-10,) the untamed tongue is spoken of as ‘a 
world of iniquity ’—the exact image and reflection of the in- 
ner world of ‘all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.’ 
And hence too the inspired writer in the same place pro- 
nounces him who ‘offends not in word’ to be ‘a perfect man’ 
—a perfection, which, in its absolute sense, has been found 
only in that Man, into whose lips grace was poured.§ But of 
all Christians Christ is the great Exemplar. 

Secondly, ‘let him eschew evil’—evil in practice, as well as 
in word. So far from indulging therein himself, or taking 
pleasure in them that do, let him cherish the quick resent- 
ment of a holy aversion to whatever is condemned by the 
law of purity and love. If it comes in his way, and he is 
compelled to look at it, let it be only that he may ‘avoid it, 
pass not by it, za from it, and pass away. ’ || 

Nor, in the third place, will it suffice that his righteousness 
be altogether of this negative sort. Scriptural morality, whe- 
ther of the Old Testament or of the New, far exceeds that 
of the fearful and jealous anchorite, fleeing from intercourse 
with his fellow-men, in the vain hope of thereby escaping be- 
yond the reach of temptation, and the presence of sin. The 
avoidance of evil must be accompanied by positive well- 
doing. It is therefore here added, ‘and do good’—whatever 
is well-pleasing in the sight of God, and ‘profitable unto 
men, ** even those most hostile to us. An active benefi- 


" * Prov. 6 : 16, 17. 1 Matt. 12:34. t Rom. 1: 18. § Psalm 45 : 2. 

|| Prov. 4:15; Rom. 1:32. Peter’s word is ἐκκλινάτω, to which Lachmann, 
Tischendorf, Alford, add dé. 

** Tit. 3:8. 


Lecture XIX. —Chapter 3 : 8-12. 215 


cence is the necessary complement of a genuine reformation. 

‘Cease to do evil; learn to do well’—God’s command to 
Israel of old by the prophets—is but repeated with a more 
persuasive earnestness by Christ’s Apostles:. ‘Abhor that 
which is evil; cleave to that which is good.’* 

And finally, in‘ order to the yet surer attainment of the 
blessing proposed, let there be, in addition to, and pervading, 
this harmless and blameless life—this uprightness and kindli- 
ness of word and deed—a distinct and settled purpose, ‘if it 
be possible, as much as lieth in you, to live peaceably with all 
men,’ ἢ One of the saddest features, certainly, of the present 
condition of human nature and of human society, is the con- 
stant tendency to discord and war. This tendency the man, 
who would make good his claims to sonship in the family of 
God,t must do his best in every lawful way to resist and over- 
come. ‘Let him seek peace, and ensue’—that is, pursie §—‘ 21. 
In the words used by another|| in illustration of the original 
passage in the Psalm, (34: 14:) ‘ Seek peace, not in an indo- 
lent and listless manner, but pursue zt, chase it, hunt for it, 
and eagerly endeavor to attain it. The command implies 
that the object is both worthy of pursuit and liable to be 
lost.’ 

Such, then, is the spirit, and. such the manner of life, to 
which was promised, in accordance with the genius of the 
ancient dispensation, length of prosperous and Happy days.** 
And still the promise stands sure, even for this world, as far 
as it shall serve for God’s glory and His children’s good. 
Now, as much as formerly, ‘godliness is profitable unto all 
things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that 
which is to come. 7 The main difference is that, by reason 
of the enlargement and clearness of the Gospel revelation, 
‘bringing life and immortality to light,’ the interest of the 
present time has faded into comparative dimness before ‘the 


eomise nl + LO, τ: ome Leno; {PROMI 2” pro. +t Matt. 5 : 9. 
§ διωξάτω. Comp. Heb. 12: 14. || Dr. J. A. Alexander. 
** Tsaac Taylor, Zhe Spirit of the Hebrew Poetry, ch. 111. : ‘The bright idea of 
earthly well-being pervades the Old Testament Scriptures, and this worldly sun- 
shine is their distinction, as compared with the New Testament.’ 
ΠῚ πὶ 6) 2-3: 


216 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


glory that excelleth.’* In all dispensations alike it remains 
ever true, that God ‘will withhold no good thing ’—nothing 
really, permanently good—‘ from them that walk uprightly,’ + 
And you will observe that here too the gracious promise, as 
cited by our Apostle, carries with it the same infallible gua- 
rantee. 

‘ For the t eyes of the Lord are over’—or upon,§ turned upon 
—‘the righteous, and Hts ears unto their prayer. || What a 
picture of condescending majesty and love! Behold, He 
who inhabiteth eternity, and spreadeth out the heavens as a 
tent to dwell in,** with unswerving and most loving regards 
watches over the humblest saint—follows him in every step 
of his pilgrimage—marks every good purpose and aspiration 
of his heart, as well as all his outward perils and temptations 
and sorrows and tears. ‘The eyes of the Lord his God are 
always upon him, from the beginning of the year even unto 
the end of the year. Yea, ‘the eyes of the Lord run to and 
fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong in 
the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him.’ 17 
And as they are ever within sight, so also within hearing. 
‘His ears are unto their prayer. We waits to hear—bows 
down His ear to listen—and no cry of their distress, no 
ejaculation of filial faith and hope, no inward sigh even of the. 
bruised and weary and longing soul, fails to find entrance 
there. Oh! the blessedness of those for whom the Almighty 
and omnipresent God thus cares. ‘I am poor and needy,’ 
said one of them of old; ‘yet the Lord thinketh upon me.’ff 
Of that he was no less assured, and it sufficed for his conso- 
lation. 

Or, if aught else were required to deepen the sense of this 

2S @ IMME τὸ: 10: & (Core, 2: 10. ip Jase tet Bais 

1 The article οἱ is cancelled by Bengel, Scholz, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford, 
(after Sin. A, B, C2.) : 

§ ἐπί with the accusative. So the Septuagint for the 5x of Ps. 34 : 15, where 


our common version has zor. 
εἰς δέησιν αὐτῶν. εἰς, like the original ὌΝ, marks direction.— Wherever 
else δέησις occurs in the singular, the English version renders it as above. Here 
it follows the older English versions, and they the Vulgate preces. 
ἘΞ Ts, 40: 223 57: 15. +1: Deut. 11 s412);)/2!Ehron- 07: 91 
ἘΝ deh ZC) B 1: - 


Lecture XIX.—Chapter 3 : 8-12. 217 


great security, it is supplied by the thought that the enemies 
of the righteous are equally within the scope of the Divine 
glance: ‘ but the face of the Lord is against’—or, as in the 
margin, #pon—turned upon—‘ those who do evil things ;’* and, 
as usual, the marginal rendering is the more exact. At least, 
the word and the construction are precisely the same as in 
the first clause, and there is no necessity for changing the 
interpretation.f On the contrary, there is something truly 
awful in the bare simplicity of the general announcement 
that, while God sees the righteous and listens to their prayer, 
He is at the same time looking also at the evil-doers. They 
may think to hide themselves and their wicked courses and 
counsels in darkness or the shadow of death.t But even 
there God, though unseen, confronts. them still, gazing direct 
and full on all their ways, and their most secret and as yet 
unuttered devices. They would fain turn their backs om 
God; but God’s face is toward them; and what more 15. 
needed to insure their ultimate destriction, and meanwhile 
to guard the righteous from their assaults? That is truly 
an awful word from the mouth of God: ‘I will set mine eyes 
upon them for evil, and not for good.’ ὃ 

You also perceive how powerful an encouragement is fur- 
nished by this consideration to such a quiet, inoffensive, for- 
giving, beneficent life, and that under the most adverse cir- 


* ἐπὶ ποιοῦντας κακά. 


+ The original 3 of Ps. 34 : 16 is thus explained by Alexander: ‘ Zhe face of 
the Lord ts with evil-doers, that is, visible or present to them, no less than to good 
men.’ Very many take πρόσωπον (Sept. for ὮΠ25) as of itself implying a@sflea- 
sure, anger. In Ps, 21 : 9 and Lam. 4 : 16, our version so renders p43, and even 


De Wette has Zorntlick in the latter instance. But all this is quite arbitrary. 
Everywhere this accessory idea is suggested solely by the connection. And 
therefore Huther is not quite correct in saying that, on account of the very fre- 
quent use of πρόσωπον in the Old Testament in reference to punishment, Peter 
might so employ it here without specification ; in other words, as being itself an- 
tithetical. The opposition (δέ) is to be found neither in ἐπί nor in πρόσωπον, nor 
in both combined, and certainly not in the final clause of Ps. 34 : 16 (here omit- 
ted, Grotius and Pott suggest, for brevity’s sake ; Jachmann, as something already 
well known; De Wette, as being probably too harsh [στε hart] for the Apostle !) 
but in what we instantly associate with the whole statement. 
t Job 34 : 22. § Amos 9: 4. 


218 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


cumstances, as the writer has been inculcating upon his 
afflicted brethren. The practical inference he would draw 
from God's relation to them that work iniquity is the same 
as Paul’s: ‘ Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather 
give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine: 
I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore, if thine enemy 
hunger, feed him ; if he thirst, give him drink : for in so doing 
thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome 
of evil, but overcome evil with good.’ * 


* Rom, 12 : 19-21. 


ILECT URE, AX, 


τ VIPS LY A oe τ 13-12 


‘ AND who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good? 
But and if ye suffer for righteousness’ sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of 
their terror, neither be troubled; but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: 
and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of 
the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: having a good conscience ; 
that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evil-doers, they may be ashamed that 
falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. For it is better, if the will of 
God be so, that ye suffer for well-doing, than for evil-doing.’ 


THE writer had been laying down rules for the guidance of 
his brethren in some of their most important relations, civil 
and social, and had followed these with a general exhortation 
addressed to all alike. Then, in the verses just preceding 
our text, to prove that a good life—a life in accordance with 
the foregoing precepts—must needs be a prosperous and 
happy one, he appeals, in the language of the Psalmist, to the 
great truth of the Divine inspection of the character and 
ways of men. So long as ‘the righteous Lord loveth right- 
eousness, it cannot but be that in a world created and 
upheld by His power, pervaded by His presence, and con- 
trolled in all its affairs and tendencies by His sovereign, pre- 
siding will, it shall be well with the righteous.* On this 
one ground of confidence the children of God could well 
afford to rest their cause. 


But now the 13th verse seems to add to this another, 
though a secondary, consideration : ‘And who is he that will 


ΟΕ ΤΠ "7; 15: 5. kOe 


220 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


harm you, tf ye be followers’ *—tmttators, or, as some read, 
zealous— of that which is good?’ This, it is true, may be, 
and often is, taken for a simple inference from what goes 
before, carrying out into expression what was already there, 
implied, thus: ‘The eyes of the Lord are in every place, be- 
holding the evil and the good. If, then, you are approved of 
Him, the impartial, almighty Judge of all, who can do you 
any real harm? or, who will even dare attempt it?’ In other 
words, ‘if God be for us, who can be against us?’ The con- 
nection would then be much the same as in the passage of 
Isaiah from which, as given in the Septuagint, the phrase 
before us seems to have been borrowed: ‘Behold, the Lord 
God will help me. Who is he that shall condemn me?’ Or 
as in Paul’s similar challenge: ‘It is God that justifieth; who 
is he that condemneth ?’ f that is, can or dare condemn ὃ 

The present case, however, is commonly understood some- 
what differently, or as introducing an additional thought 
drawn from ordinary experience, and a reasonable, human 
_ probability ; as if it were said: And besides this highest 
security that the righteous have, in the fact that ‘the Lord 
looketh from heaven; He beholdeth all the sons of men,’ who 
is going to hurt you—who so perverse as even to wish to do 
evil to you—if you, on your part, are known and distinguished 
as good men, doing good to all, as you have opportunity ? 
Who is there even of worldly men that has wholly lost the 
sense of right and wrong, or of the comeliness of virtue, or of 
gratitude and a natural equity? As the Lord said, Sinners 
also love those that love them, and do good to those who do 
good to them.{ By following, therefore, the course prescribed 
for you, you may count on having on your side every possible 
advantage, both from God and man. 


* jupntai—which is commonly followed by a personal genitive. And so here 
some (Guyse, Doddridge, Macknight, Scott, Scholefield, Brown, Peile, etc.) take 
τοῦ ἀγαϑοῦ as masculine: of “im whois good. But the antithesis to ποιοῦντας 
kaka ...kak@owr is in favor of the neuter interpretation; and though Heb. 13 : 7 
and 3 John 11 seem to show that μιμηταΐῖ i$ not incompatible with that, yet the 
better reading probably is (jAwrai (comp. Tit. 2 : 14) adopted by Wells, Lach- 
mann, Alford, after Sin. A, B, C, the Syriac version, etc. ᾿ 

+ Prov. 15:3; Rom. ὃ : 31, 33, 34; Is. 50 : 9, (τίς κακώσει pe 5) 

ἢ 12s, 2} 8 ae (Cell, 6) 8 ΤΟΙ; IO WIe yo 52. 25- 


πο... 


Lecture XX —Chapter 3 : 13-17. 221 


To this view, perhaps, it is not a sufficient objection, that 
the Epistle everywhere assumes that the Christians were then 
actually beset with enemies from whom they had already 
suffered many things, and were yet to suffer more and worse.* 
With this fully in mind, the Apostle might still suggest ina 

_ passing way what may commonly, and in the long run, be an- 
ticipated as the fruit of a consistent Christian life, just as in 
writing to the Romans, and under the reign of Nero, Paul did 
not hesitate to say: ‘Rulers are not a terror to good works, 
but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? 
do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: - 
for he is the minister of God to thee for good.’t Not only is 
that the Divine intention in the ordinance of civil govern- 
ment ; it is also, on the whole, and with whatever exceptions 
and interruptions, the result of its operation. Now, on the 
same principle of interpretation it may be asserted, and in 
equally general terms, that, bad as the world is, an exemplary 
and harmonious manifestation of the evangelical virtues tends 
to conciliate the respect and good will of men; nay, that, 
‘when a man’s ways please the Lord, He maketh even his 
enemies to be at peace with him.’t Nor must we forget that 
the sufferings of even good men, and in a good cause, are 
often traceable, not to their goodness, but to the imperfections 
of their spirit and deportment. It may easily have been so 
to some extent with those to whom Peter wrote,$ and his 
language was fitted to lead them to examine themselves, and 
put them on their guard. 


All this while, however, the writer was well aware that those 
who, in that evil time, devoted themselves to the service of the 
living and true God, and of Jesus Christ whom He had sent, 
became thereby exposed to misconception, hatred, and vio- 
lence, from the world and its rulers. He goes on, therefore, 
to put the case at the worst, and so resumes his appropriate 


See ch: (11:16); 221251 21-235 4.3 12, etc: 

Tt Rom. 13 : 3, 4. ¢ Prov, 16: 7. 

§ As much is implied, Wiesinger thinks, in the use of γένησϑε : ‘if, in conse- 
guence of my exhortation, ye become,’ etc. 


222 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


and now pressing work of comforting and ‘strengthening his 
brethren ’* amidst their trials and perils. 

‘But if even’—and this, it must be confessed, is only too 
supposable— even if ye should suffer} for righteousness’ sake’ 
—without your having given any just cause of offence to any, 
or even on account of whatever in you is most pleasing to 
God, as, for example, the name that you bear, and the holy 
life by which you seek to illustrate it—still I can take nothing 
back of all that I have been saying of the privileges of the 
righteous. Nay, ye are then in a special sense ‘ d/essed’— 
heirs of that double blessing which, as I well remember, our 
Lord’s own lips pronounced on His innocent martyrs. In 
your very innocence itself ye are blessed—blessed in the favor 
of God, and the sympathies of Jesus, and the presence and 
power of the Spirit of all consolation—blessed in the imme- 
diate fruits of your heroic faith and patience to the Church 
and to the world—and finally, and for ever, blessed in the 
exceeding great reward that awaits those of Christ’s followers 
who for His sake ‘ endure hardness.’§$ 

But that they might not fail of the full measure of this 
blessedness, it was, of course, needful that they should rise 
above the fear of man—that snare which had formerly once 
and again involved the writer himself in bitter remorse and 
shame. He is therefore careful here to add, availing himself, 
as usual, of Old Testament phraseology, ‘But be not afraid 
of their terror’—or according to the form of the original, fear 
not their fear\||—‘ neither be troubled; but sanctify the Lord 
God in your hearts. 


* Tuke 22 : 32. 

+ See p. 186, note § Here the barbarous ‘But and 7f’ is from the Rhenish 
version, after the Vulgate sed e¢ οἱ, Nowhere else in the New Testament is ef καΐ 
followed by the optative. Once (Phil. 3 : 12) it takes the subjunctive ; elsewhere 
the indicative, and is then frequently and correctly rendered in our version by 
though, The optative gently presents the case, not as an actual, but as a possible 
one. 

t Matt. 5: 10-12, The common version translates μακάριος, blessed, 44 times 
out of 50.—After μακάριοι, Sin. inserts ἐστέ. 

Seay ἴτας AH ee 

|| τὸν δὲ φόβον αὐτῶν μὴ φοβηϑῆτε. Some (as Whitby, Benson, Carpzov, Mac- 
knight, Brown, etc.) have given this dé an illative force—therefore, then—which 
nowhere belongs to it. 


Lecture XX —Chapter 3 : 13-17. 223 


As the words were first used by the Prophet, (Is. 8 : 12,) 
they were a warning to the faithful against allowing them- 
selves to be disturbed by the vain alarms that agitated their 
unbelieving neighbors ; and they have sometimes been taken 
in the same sense in the passage before us: Fear not what 
they fear, from whom you may have to suffer ; or, Fear not as 
they fear. But here it is more natural to understand them 
as simply equivalent to, Hear not them ; or else thus: Fear not 
the fearful things they may threaten or inflict ;* another lesson 
which our Apostle had studied also at the feet of Jesus: 
‘And I say unto you, my friends, Be not afraid of them that 
kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. 
But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear Him, which 
after He hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say 
unto you, Fear Him.’f All this is implied when Peter, cut- 
ting short and slightly modifying his quotations from Isaiah, 
merely adds, ‘ but sanctify the Lord God’—or, as we should pro- 
bably read, the Lord Christ t{—‘ in your hearts’ The Lord hav- 
ing pledged Himself to stand by you as your Protector and 
Deliverer, for you now to cower and tremble in the presence 
of your enemies is to doubt His faithfulness or His power, 
and to profane, so to speak, His holy name. On the other 
hand, cherish in your innermost souls an earnest, abiding 
sense of, and an unwavering reliance on, His presence and 
love, and, as you will thus honor Him inwardly, so, living or 
dying, you will glorify Him before men by your calm bearing 
and immovable fortitude under all outward assaults. Like 
Moses of old, and like Stephen now, you will ‘endure as see- 
ing Him who is invisible.§ Says Archbishop Leighton: 
‘In all states, I know of no heart’s ease, but to believe; to 
sanctify and honor thy God in resting on His word.’ 


Here too, however, a caution was needed on the other side, 


* These variations are evolved according as φόβον and airév—one or the other, 
or both—are explained objectively or subjectively. 

ipacuke 12 : 4, 5- 

1 So Wells, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Theile, Tregelles, Alford, after Sin. A, 
B, C, and the ancient versions. 

S Heb: 11 s 27: 


224 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


to guard against an injurious use of these exhortations. What 
is enjoined is a spirit of fearlessness in regard to the perse- 
cutors of Christ and His people, and, in order to that, of a 
supreme, inward reverence toward God. Now, with some 
this might be so far mistaken as to be employed to justify or 
palliate a show of disrespect and defiance toward the adver- 
saries of the truth, or at least a feeling of indifference to their 
better instruction. It is therefore added: ‘ Yet* be ready 
always for an answer to every one that asketh of you an account 
of + the hope that is in you, with meckness and fear, 

Observe, they are not required to be always disputing about 
their hope, or obtruding it upon others, without regard to the 
proprieties of time, place, and person, but to ‘de ready’—ready 
in their own clear apprehension of the subject, and ready also 
in a loving concern for the guidance and salvation of others ; 
‘ready always,’ on the humblest occasions, as well as the 
more public and formal ; ready in the house, and by the way- 
side, and amidst the ordinary businesses of life, xo less than 
when brought before the kings and judges of the earth; 
‘ready always for an answer, apology, vindication, defence, 
as when Paul spoke for himself on the temple-stairs and be- 
fore Agrippa’s throne; but, so far from waiting for rare op- 
portunities of that sort, ‘be ready always for an answer Zo 
every one, rich or poor, learned or unlearned, ‘Greek or Jew, 
Barbarian, Scythian, bond or free ;’§ what you have to say is 
of equal moment to one as to another, and they have all an 
equal claim on your benevolence; ‘to every one,’ therefore, 
‘that asketh of you, and so manifests a degree of interest, 
greater or less, and howsoever awakened, in the topic so dear 
to yourselves ; ‘that asketh of you,’ not merely ‘a reason of, 


* dé—which Lachmann cancels on the authority of Sin. C, the Vulgate, and 
Origen—(his comma after ὑμῶν suggesting also the dependence of ἔτοιμοι on the 
subject of ἁγιάσατε.) Most treat it as a mere connective, or particle of transi- 
tion, while some would here begin a new paragraph, and occasionally drop the 
δέ altogether in translation. Bengel’s view is peculiar : ‘ There is force in the δέ. 
Not only should your wa/k be comely, (ch, 2 : 12,) J¢ every one ready also with 
his confession.’ 

t ἕτοιμοι δὲ ἀεὶ πρὸς ἀπολογίαν παντὶ τῷ αἰτοῦντι ὑμᾶς λόγον περὶ κτλ. 

1 Acts 22:1; 26 :1,2. Comp. ῬΆΙ101 : 7,.17. In all these cases the word 
is ἀπολογία or its verb. ὃ. ΟΟ]..2 ὁ τὰς 


Lecture XX—Chapter 3 : 13-17. 225 


but, in general, az account of, a statement concerning,* ‘the 
hope that is in you, its nature, ground, object, and influences. 
Tell him how you too, like your heathen neighbors, were 
lately living without hope in the world—with no hope toward 
God—no hope for a dying hour—no hope for eternity. Then 
speak to him of ‘God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, our 
hope. + Open to him the glorious mystery of His person, 
and work, and death, and resurrection, and ascension to the 
Father’s right hand, and future return as the Judge of the 
quick and dead, and King of all the earth. Explain to him, 
moreover, your own personal interest in all this through your 
living union by faith with this blessed Son of God, the world’s 
Redeemer, and the consequent indwelling and gracious wit- 
ness of His Spirit with your spirit, that you also are now 
‘children of God; and if children, then heirs ; heirs, indeed, 
of God, but’—that only because you are—‘joint-heirs with 
Christ. Oh! what must be the value of the inheritance 
which has been bequeathed by the Almighty Father to the 
Son of His love! How ‘sure and steadfast’ the hope of par- 
ticipation therein, which is secured by such guarantees! How 
powerful to console amid all present privations, and to raise 
and strengthen, dignify and purify, the heart in which it 
dwells, and the life which it enlightens and adorns! This 
hope it is, you can say, that enables you. to bear without pas- 
sion or murmuring the world’s wrong and contumely, and 
which, like that Divine Form in the seven times heated fur- 
nace of Babylon, still shines, victorious in its brightness, 
through the fires of martyrdom. Finally, with this ‘ account 
of the hope that is in you, you may go on, for the sake of the 
inquirer, to contrast it in all these respects with such hopes 
as he himself entertains—so limited in their scope, so inse- 
cure in their foundation, so uncertain of fulfilment, so inope- 
rative for good on his moral and spiritual being and his eternal 
destiny. 


* Comp. Luke 16 : 2; Acts το : 40; Rom. 14: 12, εἴς, The περί also of itself 
excludes the ordinary limitation. 


ΠΕΡΙ: 2 rei 0 Dims Τὴ τὸ 
t Rom, ὃ : 16, 17, (κληρονόμοι μὲν Οεοῦ, συγκληρονόμοι δὲ X.) 


226 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


‘ But, * adds Peter, see to it that, while you thus unfold the 
infinite superiority of your standing and privileges, your con- 
fident earnestness do not degenerate into a tone of arrogant 
ostentation. Let your whole discourse be ‘zwzth meckness 
and fear ;’ with ‘meekness, such as, in dealing with a poor 
sinner who is still out of the way of life, becomes those who 
are themselves indebted for whatever they have and hope for 
to the free grace of God ; and with ‘fay,’ or reverential awe, 
lest, while testifying for Christ, and as in His presence, you 
prejudice, by the matter or manner of your address on a sub- 
ject of transcendent, vital interest, a soul for which He died.} 

And since no confession of the mouth, however in itself 
unexceptionable and persuasive, has any value in the sight of 
God, or is likely to carry weight with men, unless it be accom- 
panied and sustained by a consistent life, the Apostle in con- 
clusion again reminds his brethren of that indispensable 
requisite. ‘ Having a good conscience’—‘a conscience void 
of offence toward God and toward men,’ such as Paul ever 
carefully labored to maintain.t Without this, your sufferings 
lose their one element of glory and power as Christian suffer- 
ings—sufferings of Christ, and for Christ. Without it, you 
quit the shelter of the Divine promise, and can no longer feel 
or manifest the lion boldness of the righteous, but must stand 
abashed before your foes. Without it, you cannot sanctify 
the Lord in your hearts,§ or hallow His name in the world ; 


* Before μετά, Wells, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford, insert dAAd,=dut with, 
etc., (Sin A, B, C, Vulgate, etc.) 

t+ The common English version, as frequently printed, closes the 15th verse 
with a full period, though the original edition had a colon, which is preferable, 
and most other versions, as well as many editions of the Greek text, have but a 
comma. Wakefield even construes the words μετὰ mpaityto¢g καὶ φύβου (with 
meekness and fear) with ἔχοντες (having) of v. τό ; to which verse they are trans- 
ferred also in the common editions of the Syriac and Vulgate, etc. But it is much 
better to consider them, according to the ordinary arrangement, as defining the 
spirit and manner of a right, Christian confession ; to which the next verse then 
adds, in close connection, the simultaneous and indispensable corroboration of 
the life. 

t Acts 24: 16. 

§ ἔχοντες (having) is to be construed as depending on dyacdre, (sanctify, ) 
not immediately, (so Steiger and De Wette,) but in subordination to ἕτοιμοι, 
(ready. So Wiesinger.) 


Lecture XX. —Chapter 3 : 13-17. 227 


nor can you hope to silence your accusers, and bring them to 
a better mind. 

This last consideration, you may remember, was distinctly 
adverted to at the very beginning of the section, in which 
the writer undertook to set forth what belongs to a comely 
deportment among the Gentiles, (ch. 2 : 12,) and now here, at 
the close, it is resumed, and pressed once more. ‘Having a 
good conscience ; that, whereas they speak evil of you’—or, as we 
had it formerly, ‘chat, wherein they may speak against you as 
evil-doers, they may be ashamed who traduce your good be- 
havior in Christ.* Which is as much as to say: ‘Only let 
your conversation be as it becometh the Gospel of Christ.’ 
‘As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in 
Him ’—in union and communion with Him ; and, though you 
may still be smitten with the tongue of slander, and your very 
good itself be evil spoken οὐ ἡ yet it can scarcely be that your 
calumniators will always hold out against the silent but con- 
stant appeal of a patient, humble, loving, holy life. And 
then will come for them a time of shame, when convicted at 
last before the community, and by their own conscience, of 
their previous ignorant malice. Nay, who can tell but that, 
in the revulsion of feeling, they may themselves then pass 
under the yoke of Christ, ‘and falling down on their faces, 
worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth’ ?¢ 

The exhortation is confirmed, and the whole case, as re- 
gards suffering for righteousness’ sake, summed up in the 17th 
verse: ‘/or’—whatever becomes of your persecutors and 
maligners—‘ it is de¢ter’—infinitely and in every way better ;§ 
better for you; better for all around you; better for the 
cause of Christ, and for the glory of God—‘it is detter, that ye 
suffer, af the will of God should so wilt’—for what is safer for 


* iva ἐν @ (see p. 133, note δ) καταλαλῶσιν (a contingent probability. Bengel 
and Lachmann read, as in ch, 2 : 12, καταλαλοῦσιν [Sin. A, C ;] Tischendorf and 
Alford, καταλαλεῖσϑε [B]) ὑμῶν ὡς κακοποιῶν, (these words are cancelled by Tisch- 
endorf and Alford. The Vulgate has simply ὑμῶν, of which Mill approves, 
thinking that ὡς κακοποιῶν came in as commentary from ch. 2 : 12,) καταισχυνϑῶ- 
σιν οἱ ἐπηρεάζοντες ὑμῶν τὴν ἀγαϑὴν ἐν Χριστῷ [Sin., εἰς Χριστὸν] ἀναστροφήν. 

(enim: 27; ΘΟ ΖΞ ΟΣ ΌΠΩΣ Τὴ: 16: at τ (Croley ial eae 

§ Bengel : ‘ beatius, infinitis modis.’ 


228 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


you than the will of God, come in what shape it may? And 
yet I grant that, though you are to accept the cross, when it 
comes, you are not to seek for it.* Only of this be sure, that 
whenever for His own wise and gracious purposes God is 
pleased to bring you into trial, it is better that ye suffer— 
‘in doing well than in doing evil’ 1 The sufferers themselves 
might be apt to think otherwise. They might be tempted to 
consider it an aggravation of their distress, that they suffered 
in innocence, or even for what was really praiseworthy. No, 
says Peter; that is a most blessed alleviation of your trials. 
Let it be your consolation and joy. Not only do you thus 
enter into the fellowship of all the prophets and righteous 
men of old, in whom the Divine truth and holiness were in 
like manner persecuted, but you become conformed to the 
great example of the Lord Himself. 

In the verses that follow, that great example is displayed 
anew. 


* So Luther: ‘Gehe du hin in Glaube und Liebe : kommt das Kreuz, so nimm 
es an; kommt es nicht, so such’ es nécht.’ 

ἱ κρεῖττον γὰρ ἀγαϑοποιοῦντας, ei ϑέλοι (Sin., etc. So all the recent editors, 
instead of %é2e1.C omp. the optative in v. 14—p. 222, note 1) τὸ ϑέλημα τοῦ 
Θεοῦ, πάσχειν, ἢ κακοποιοῦντας. Leighton: ‘This is by far the better, to suffer 
in well-doing, and for it, than to suffer either for doing evil, or simply to suffer 77 
that way, {as the words run,) κακοποιοῦντας πάσχειν to suffer doing evil.’ 


LACT ΟΣ ΣΟ ΌΔ dy 


1 PETER 3 : 18. 


“HORVGhriste’ se ss tO God: 


In one place (2 Pet. 3 : 16) our Apostle speaks of ‘things 
hard to be understood’ in the writings of Paul. But here, at 
the end of this third chapter of his own First Epistle, we 
come on a passage of exceeding difficulty—one that has re- 
ceived the most various and conflicting interpretations, and 
given rise to endless discussion. Let us, then, as we ap- 
proach the consideration of it, understand the special call 
there is for caution of investigation and modesty of state- 
ment. And, as the inquiry will be immediately concerning 
our Lord’s mediatorial work, let us with special earnestness 
invoke the guidance of the Spirit of Christ—Christ’s great 
Witness in the Church. 


What seems obvious enough on a careful reading of the 
passage and context is, that the last five verses of this chap- 
ter and the first six verses of the next together form one con- 
tinuous section, and that that section, as introduced here by 
the initial ‘ Hor’—because *—of v. 18, is an argument confirm- 
atory of the previous exhortation to a ‘ patient continuance in 
well-doing.’ + It is only when we come to analyze the argu- 
ment, and determine all the elements that enter into its con- 
struction, that the chief difficulty presents itself. Meanwhile, 
let it be noted with thankfulness that, as so often happens in 
such cases, what lies on the surface, and is least liable to 


*® ὅτι. t Rom, 2: 7. 


230 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


doubt or misapprehension, is just that which it is most im- 
portant for us to know. Thus, however dark and impenetra- 
ble may be the cloud of mystery that overhangs the middle 
portion of the way we have to traverse, every eye can clearly 
discern its commencement and its termination—the former 
in the vicarious sufferings and atoning death of the Saviour, 
the latter in His triumphant ascension and session at God’s 
right hand. To the first of these great themes, and its bear- 
ing on the present life of Christians, our attention is confined 
by the words now before us, in which Peter once more de- 
livers his testimony, as ‘a witness of the sufferings of Christ :’* 
‘ Because Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the 
unjust, that He might bring us to God.’ Formerly, (ch. 2 : 21, 
etc.,) it was rather Christ’s patient bearing in His sufferings, 
that came prominently into view ;f here it is the redeeming 
and reconciling power of the sufferings themselves. 

And, because this too depends primarily on the person and 
character of the Sufferer, you will not overlook the import of 
the Apostle’s designation of Him as Christ, the Fust One. 

He is ‘ Christ’—the Messiah—called of God, and divinely 
qualified for the highest exercise of those offices, to which 
under the old economy men were consecrated by unction. 
He is the anointed Prophet, Priest, and King of the Church, 
on whom, in fulfilment of the ancient oracle, ‘the Spirit of 
the Lord rests, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the 
Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of 
the fear of the Lord,’ ἢ 

And not only is He thus officially accredited by God’s own 
seal; personally also He is ‘just’—righteous §—‘holy, harm- 
less, undefiled. He was ‘that holy thing’ || born of the Vir- 
gin; and, as He was born, so He lived, and so He died ; 
though passing through the midst of the world’s conflicts and 
pollutions,-as the sun through a cloudy, tempestuous sky, and 
going down at last, so to speak, in a hurricane of wrath. 


For Christ, the Righteous One, was nevertheless a sufferer. 


22 (Clas 9 ite t Comp. Lecture xvi. in MRS GF. 
§ As in ch. 3: 12 and 4: 18. || Heb. 7 : 26; Luke I : 35. 


Lecture XXI—Chapter 3 : 18. 231 


‘ Christ also suffered ;’* Ue suffered ‘once’—once for all— 
once and no more. ‘Taking in all,’ says Leighton, ‘ He suf- 
fered once—His whole life was one continued line of suffer- 
ing from the manger to the cross. All that lay betwixt was 
suitable ; His state and entertainment throughout His whole 
life agreed well with so mean a beginning, and so reproachful 
an end of it” But I think the word may also be taken as an 
anticipation and preluding note of the triumph that bursts 
forth in the 22d verse. He ‘ suffered once, and there His suf- 
ferings ended. ‘He died unto sin once ;’ but, ‘ being raised 
from the dead, He dieth no more; death hath no more do- 
minion over Him.’ 

Of His sufferings, while they lasted, who shall dare to speak 
in detail ? We know little more of them, than that they were 
peculiar and unparalleled, from devils, from men, and from God. 
He was the Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief—His 
visage so marred more than any man, and His form more than 
the sons of men.’ Legions of foul, malignant spirits were al- 
lowed their hour and power of darkness against the Son of 
God. But He was not their Saviour. Alas! ‘He came unto 
His own, and His own received Him not.’ He was ‘despised 
and rejected of men; and we hid as it were our faces from 
Him ; He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.” Even 
of those whom He had chosen out of the world, and admit- 
ted to the intimacies of friendship, one betrayed Him, an- 
other denied Him, and in His last hour of trial they all for- 
sook Him and fled. Hence, in the book of Psalms, in which 
are so many things written concerning Christ, He makes fre- 
quent use of such language as the following : ‘ Reproach hath 
broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness ; and I looked for 
some to take pity, but there were none; and for comforters, but 
I found none.’ All these sufferings, however, though severe, 
He might have borne in silence ; but when His Father whom 
He loved—in whose bosom He had lain from eternity—and 
whom He had sought to glorify upon the earth, doing always 


* Historic time, as in ch. 2 : 21; Heb. καὶ : 8, etc. For ἔπαϑε, Wells and Lach- 
mann read ἀπέϑανε, [v,] died (Sin. A, C, Syriac and Vulgate, Cyprian, etc.) Sin. 
also omits kai. 

+t Rom. 6 : 9, το, (é¢d7aé.) 


232 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


the things that pleased Him—when He also ‘forsook’ Him, 
and flung darkness and terrors on His soul, then did the Holy 
and the Just cry out in an agony, and He became ‘exceeding 
sorrowful, -even unto death.’* But let us not seek to pierce 
the awful depths of this greatest tragedy, when one of those 
who followed Jesus into the shades of Gethsemane limits him- 
self to saying in the simplest phrase: ‘ Christ also suffered. 


But how, you may well ask, was it possible that such a one, 
under the Divine government should suffer at all? And the 
difficulty would be real and serious but for the authoritative 
solution of God’s own word: ‘He suffered for szus, that 
is, they were penal sufferings —‘ the righteous for the un- 
righteous, } that is, they were vicarious sufferings. 

He ‘suffered for szzs, or—(for the preposition? is not the 
same as that in the next clause)—concerning, in relation to, on 
account of, sins. This so far determines the quality of His 
sufferings. They were the effect and expression of the Di- 
_ vine displeasure ; and there is nothing in the universe but 
sin, that is an object of dislike to God. Christ’s sufferings, 
however, could not be of a corrective or disciplinary charac- 
ter. The Righteous One needed no chastisement at His 
Father's hand. Yet sin, we are expressly told, was the occa- 
sion and cause of His sufferings. They even furnished the 


most terrible exemplification that the world ever witnessed of 


the eternal and universal law, ‘The wages of sin is death.’ ὃ 

It is, then, farther obvious that these penal sufferings, if 
not the reward of Christ’s own demerit, nor intended to pu- 
rify and subdue His own heart to the Divine law, must have 
been the result of some judicial arrangement. In other 
words, they were vicarious—endured by the Saviour, not as 
being Himself a sinner, but as the sinner’s Surety. He 


* Is. 52:14; 53:33; Johnr:11; Ps. 69: 20; Matt. 26 : 38, 56; 27 : 46, etc. 

+ ἀδίκων. The reference is to general character, as ini Cor.6:9. Before 
ἁμαρτιῶν Sin. inserts τῶν, and after it Sin. adds ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν. 

{ mept—which in most cases is, in such a connection, sufficiently well rendered 
by for. But where, as here and Eph. 6 : 18, 19, it is in the same sentence ex- 
changed for ὑπέρ, it seems proper that we should recognize the specific difference 
of the two particles. 

ὃ Rom. 6 : 23. 


Lute XX/I—Chapter 3: 18. 2330 


‘suffered, 216 Righteous for’—in the room of—‘¢the un- 
vighteous ;’* a statement perfectly sufficient of itself to es- 
tablish the vital doctrines of the substitution, and consequent 
atonement, if only it be allowed that a plain scriptural state- 
ment can establish any thing. But you are well aware that 
just such statements as the present abound in the Bible. 
That ‘Christ died for our sins’—‘died for the ungodly ’— 
this, Paul asserts, is ‘according to the Scriptures ; f as if the 
sacrificial death of the unblemished and unspotted Lamb of 
God were the grand, leading fact to which they testify—the 
,very burden of all Divine revelation. 


And now mark the design of Christ, the Righteous One, 
in giving Himself to suffering and death for the unrighteous. 
Of God’s ulterior designs in this the most wondrous of His 
ways we know very little, because very little has been re- 
vealed. But, whatever be the bearings of this Divine proce- 
dure on the history of the universe, of this we are assured, 
that the immediate thought of Christ’s heart was 20 bring meu 
to God. 

Formerly, then, we were at a distance from God; and this 
implies ignorance of His character and will—enmity and 
alienation—moral dissimilarity—and the want of any favor- 
able intercourse and fellowship. In all these respects we, 
who ‘some time were far off, are made nigh’ + through a suf- 
fering Mediator. ‘No man cometh unto the Father but by 
Him ;’§ and every pilgrim takes Calvary in his way. There 
at last, and only there, do we attain to any just and satisfying 
views concerning the Supreme Being, and our relations to 
Him. 

We have no reason to think that it was in consequence of 
any thing resembling miraculous interference, that man after 
the fall lost the knowledge of God, which he originally pos- 
sessed. It was only by degrees, and as it were through the 
thickening shades of the twilight, that night advanced, and 
spread her pall over the nations. But the dismal process 


* In Greek without the articles: Righteous for unrighteous. 
fom, 5:65. 1 Cor, 1599 fe Epi 2. 213, § John 14: 6. 


234 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


began from the hour of the first transgression. Adam, hiding 
from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the 
garden, is the visible embodiment of the moral tendencies of 
the race throughout all the subsequent generations of the 
world. Fearing God, man wishes and struggles to forget 
Him. ‘Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of 
Thy ways’*—is the dread defiance inscribed, as with hell- 
fire, on our ruined nature. Nor is there, in history or philoso- 
phy, any one thing more certain than this, that, but for the 
provisions and influences of grace, the separation between 
God and man must have been perpetual and ever-widening. 
Now, those gracious provisions and influences all centre in ° 
the cross of Christ, and flow forth from it. ‘God was in 
Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their 
trespasses unto them. ... For He hath made Him to be sin for 
us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteous- 
ness of God in Him.’ And not only is the curse repealed. 
Not only does the believer, however in himself guilty and 
worthless, stand clear in law from every legal demand and 
penalty. Not only is he thus relieved from all fearful fore- 
bodings of coming wrath. His ‘whole spirit and soul and 
body’ pass under the sway of a new and sanctifying power, 
even the love of Him who first loved us. Receiving into his 
heart the Spirit of adoption, he now calls God Father, and 
delights in His law, and rests in His embrace. His fellowship is 
with the Father and the Son. These glorious Guests dwell 
with him, and sit with him, and, by the very shining of their pre- 
sence, gradually change the man from glory to glory into the 
same image, until, that image perfected, he is lifted up within 
the veil of God’s own pavilion. There shall the followers of the 
suffering Christ be brought very near to God,§ and they shall 
see His face, and sit at His table, and for ever hymn His 
praise. But, amidst the triumphs and ecstasies of the Church 
in those high climes of bliss, the lowliness of the manger, 
and the agony of the garden and the blood of Calvary, and 
the darkness of Joseph’s sepulchre, shall never be forgotten. 


ἈΠΟ; ie ΣΤ: tT 2 Com Sy ΤΟ; are ται Thess. 15 : 23. 
§ Note the strength of the phrase: iva προσαγάγῃ τῷ OeG.—Sin. omits nude. 


Lecture XXI—Chapter 3: 18. 235 


‘They sing a new song, saying, Thou art worthy ; for Thou 
wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood out of * 
every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation ; and hast 
made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign 
on the earth.’ * 


But I must not omit to ask you to notice, in conclusion, 
how every word of our text tells on the writer’s immediate 
purpose, as that was before explained. Thus, 

1. What a strong consolation is it to the suffering children ᾿ 
of God, that ‘ Christ also suffered’! ‘Though he were a Son’ 
—and such a Son, as none may be compared with Him—‘ yet 
learned He obedience by the things which He suffered.’ He 
was ‘in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.’> 
As Leighton again has it: ‘One Son without sin; but not 
one without suffering.’ 

2. And how is the force a this consideration strengthened 
by reflecting, in the second place, that He was a sinless Suf- 
ferer, and that Jesus Christ, the Righteous, suffered, not for 
Himself, but for us unrighteous! Shall not we, who have so 
long and so deeply sinned, be as ready to suffer, where we 
ourselves have all the benefit, or for Christ’s glory, and the 
edification of His Church ? 

3. Again, that the holy Son of God, our Saviour, suffered 
on account of sins, ought surely to deepen our hatred of that 
which brought Him so low! What more shocking perversity 
of ingratitude can be conceived, than so to abuse His love as, 
on the strength of it, to take indulgence in sin, thus making 
the Righteous One the minister of unrighteousness—yea, 
‘crucifying to ourselves the Son of God afresh, and putting 
Him to an open shame’! ἢ 

4. Once more, believers, rejoice that your Lord suffered 
but ovce, and so entered into His glory. The word is full of 
blessed omen for you also. For all that are Christ’s, as for 
Christ Himself, ‘weeping may endure for a night ; but joy 
cometh in the morning.’§ The Man of Sorrows is now with 
God, and still He prosecutes the end for which He suffered, 


* Rev. 5 : 9, 10. i) ΕΡΏΣΝ pais. 5,28. ties 6: Ὁ: δ᾽ Ἔ5:.30:: 5: 


236 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


namely, that He might bring you also to that same Presence. 
‘Already He has brought you, sprinkled with blood, as far as 
the blood-sprinkled mercy-seat. Nor will the Good Shepherd, 
who gave His life for the sheep, forsake His charge, till He 
has them safe within His heavenly fold. 

5. And, finally, must it not be said, Alas for the man who 
refuses to accept of the guidance of such a Leader—who has 
never yet, it may be, taken the first earnest step on the con- 
secrated, upward path! That man, whosoever he be, is ‘ yet 
in his sins’—he is ‘unjust still’* He knows no comfortable 
communion with God on earth, and has no hope of beholding 
His face in righteousness—of being satisfied, when he awakes 
from this dream of life or from the bed of death, with His like- 
ness.~ No; living or dead, if found at that great day, toward 
which the agitated current of this world’s affairs is swiftly 
rushing, still estranged from God, he ‘shall be punished ’— 
even according to his sins ; punished—‘ with everlasting de- 
struction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory 
of His power.’t The man that so meets His descending Judge 
—unreconciled, and alienated from the life and love of God— 
shall be hurried forth by whirlwinds to a waste, howling wil- 
derness—a dry, parched land where no water is—where no 
light of the sun nor of the stars appears—where no sleep 
refreshes, and hope never comes; but, as the blighted soul 
wanders on through eternity, the only memorial of the exist-. 
ence of Him who is Almighty will be the ever-thickening 
reverberations, bursting all around its path, of that voice of 
doom, ‘ Depart from me’! 

Ah sinner! it need not, it cannot, be so, unless you will 
have it so. It is the same voice that now says: ‘Come unto 
me. ‘Christ suffered... that He might bring us to God.’ 
Shun alike indifference and despair. There is no other way 
of escape ; but in this way all that will come may come, and 
shall in no wise be cast out. Say not, if ever you are brought 
to serious conviction of sin, that you are a sinner— Christ 
suffered for sins ;’ or even that you are the chief of sinners— 
Christ makes no exceptions, and why should you make any? 


APT ACK gi al 7.5 Neves 220s 501, 15 17) Ὑ τ τὸ 1 2 Thess, 1: 9. 


Lecture XXI—Chapter 3: 18. 237 


Come to Christ! Come, indeed, with lowliest confession. 
Come in tears, and smiting upon your breast. But come also 
in faith; and come at once and without delay. Only come 
to Christ, and to God by Him. To all doubts and fears let 
it be your sufficient answer, that ‘ Christ suffered’—that ‘it is 
Christ that died.’ * 


* Rom. 8 : 34.—A comparison of this Lecture with Dr. John Brown’s Discourse 
(published since the Zectwre was written) on the same text, will detect a few traces 
of resemblance, which the writer has not at all cared to obliterate. They plea- 
santly remind him of how much he owes to the instructions received in early 
life from the lips of that venerable man. 


TECTURE X ATS, 


I PETER 3 2 18-20: 


‘ BEING put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: by which also 
he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; which sometime were disobe- 
dient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the 
ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.’ 


Tue confessed difficulty of this passage* makes it the more 
needful, first of all, that we get as near as we can to an exact 
representation of the original phraseology. 

This our common version fails to give in at least one im- 
portant particular. When our translators speak of Christ as 
‘guickened by the Spirit, they no doubt do something toward 
facilitating and determining the interpretation ; but the ad- 
vantage is gained at the expense of an arbitrary variation, 
not only from the older English versions, but from the Apos- 
tle’s Greek. That would be strictly rendered thus: ‘ Being 
put to death, indeed, in flesh, but quickened in spirit. + And 
in connection with this it should be noted that the expression 
‘by which’ of the next verse would more naturally be ‘zz 
which. ἢ 

Again, it is universally agreed that the word ‘once’ of the 
20th verse has no right to be there, having been nothing 
more than a conjecture of the editor of the first printed New 


* Estius : ‘Locus hic omnium pene interpretum judicio difficillimus.’ 

+ ϑανατωϑεὶς μὲν σαρκὶ, ζωοποιηϑεὶς δέ πνεύματι. The change of the two par- 
ticiples into accusatives in agreement with ἡμᾶς (us) of the previous clause—(so 
the Codex Amiatinus, the Sixtine Vulgate, Bede, etc.)—is of no authority, and 
probably originated in the mistake of a copyist.—The τῷ before πνεύματι (the 
Spirit) has long been rejected by all critical editors, (Sin. etc.) 

t ἐν ᾧ. 


Lecture XXII—Chapter 3 : 18-20. 239 


Testament.* The last clause also of that verse is perhaps 
more readily understood, if we say that Noah and his com- 
pany were saved, not ‘é4y water’—as if the water, and not the 
ark, had been the means of their deliverance, ἡ but ¢hrough 
water t—they having been carried clear through it, and so 
saved from it, instead of being lost in the overwhelming flood. 
The manner, however, in which the baptismal water is pre- 
sently referred to in the 2Ist verse, seems to render it 
probable that here likewise there is a silent allusion to the 
favorable action of the water in Noah’s case, as the element 
on which the ark itself rode secure over a lost world. 

With these modifications, then, and one or two others of 
less moment, the passage before us may be read thus: 
‘Being put to death, indeed, in flesh, but quickened in spirit ; 
zn which going He preached’—or, He went and preached— 
‘also to the spirits in prison, disobedient sometime’ §$—once, 
Jormerly— when the long-suffering of God waited in. the days 
of Noah, while the ark was preparing, in which || few **—that 
2s, enght souls were saved through water. This, perhaps, is 
as close a translation as can well be given. Let us now 
inquire into the meaning of the whole statement.ff 





The great question evidently—that on the answer to which 
depends the adjustment of various subordinate particulars— 


* Erasmus—for whose ἅπαξ ἐξεδέχετο all now read ἀπεξεδέχετο, (Sin. A, B, C, 
etc., Vulgate, etc.) The latter is one of Paul’s favorite compounds. 

t The view, however, of some, as Estius, Pott, Jachmann, Alford. 

t διεσώϑησαν δι’ ὕδατος. The preposition cannot well be taken in a different 
sense from that which it bears in the associate verb ; though it has been various- 
ly rendered 7 the midst of, in, (Pagninus, Beza, Grotius, etc.,) oz, (Martini, 
Carpzov, Wakefield, etc.,) during, in the time of, (Benson, Semler, etc.) Comp. 
διὰ πυρός of 1 Cor. 3 : 15. 

§ ἐν ᾧ καὶ τοῖς ἐν φυλακῇ πνεύμασι πορευϑεὶς ἐκήρυξεν, ἀπειϑήσασι ποτέ. 

|| The 6’ ὕδατος, compared with Gen. 7 : 7, etc., forbids us to explain εἰς ἦν as 
marking the ¢erminus i quem of the deliverance, (as 2 Tim. 4: 18; comp. Acts 
23 : 24, etc. ;) and accordingly the Syriac solution is generally adopted: zzto 
which entering, etc. 

** Wells, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Bloomfield, Alford, read ὀλίγοι, (Sin. A, B. 
Vulgate, Origen, Cyprian, etc. ;) while the common reading, ὀλίγαι, has suggested 
the above, or equivalent, punctuation in many editions and versions. 

tt Interesting sketches of the history of the interpretation may be found in 
Pott, De Wette, Huther, Wiesinger, Alford. 


240 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


is this: What was that ministry of Christ to which the 
Apostle here refers? When—toward whom—for what pur- 
pose—was it exercised ? 

I. The view, that is now generally taken on these points 
in the Protestant churches, is said to have been first broached 
by Augustine in the fourth century, and is to the effect, that 
the preaching spoken of took place in the antediluvian 
period, when the Spirit of Christ, as He is called in the first 
chapter of our Epistle, ‘strove with man, and Noah, the 
‘preacher of righteousness,’ and prophet of the coming doom, 
stood up under His inspiration, and by word and act ‘ con- 
demned the world’ of the ungodly.* These ungodly, it has 
been thought, may be said to have been at that time ‘ 52271215 
771 prison, inasmuch as they were then held in the bondage of 
the flesh and of ignorance.f Or, should this be reckoned a 
little fanciful or far-fetched, still the designation may be de- 
rived from their present condition as disembodied spirits, 
reserved in the custody of the Divine justice unto the judg- 
ment of the great day, though, when Christ preached to 
them, they were living men in the flesh. 

It was doubtless with a favorable eye to this interpretation, 
that our translators introduced the peculiarity, already noticed, 
of their version, ‘guzckened by the Spirit, by which also, etc. 
But the questionable rendering is not essential to the general 
view, as it has just been stated. This may be held, though 
we should take spzvit here as the name, not of the Holy 
Spirit, but of Christ’s own spiritual personality, or, in other 
words, as that, not by which, but in regard to which, He was 
quickened. 

There is evidently a strong contrast intended between the 
‘flesh, as to which Christ was ‘put to death, and the ‘ spirit, 
as to which He was ‘guickened,;’ and it will be well to see 
what may be learned for our present guidance from the 
frequent occurrence of the same contrast elsewhere in Scrip- 
ture. 

Thus, of our Lord Himself it is said that He ‘ was made of 


ALC HS) 5 Aaa Sisley ΤΙ : ἡ. + So Augustine, etc. 
t So Beza, etc. 


Lecture XX1TI.—Chapter 3 : 18-20. 241 


the seed of David according to the flesh’—as to'His human 
nature, so far as he was truly a man—‘and declared to be 
the Son of God with power, according to the ‘ spirit of holi- 
ness --ἰη regard, that is, to the higher spiritual essence that 
dwelt in the Man Christ Jesus—‘by the resurrection from 
the dead.’ And so, when we read that He, who ‘was mani- 
fested in flesh, was ‘justified in spirit, we understand the 
latter expression as announcing the result of the shining 
forth, through the veil of His humanity, and out of the lowly 
conditions of His life on earth, of the glory of the Eternal 
Son.* Now, as the Word, made flesh, became subject to 
eclipse—to weakness and death, so, when His Divinity re- 
asserted itself in His resurrection, I see not why, in perfect 
accordance with the New-Testament style of speaking on the 
subject of our Lord’s person and history, the returning 
brightness might not properly be described as ἃ being 
‘guickened in spirit’—a revival in quenchless manifestation 
of that very nature, which wrought in the beginning in the 
creation of the worlds, and ever onward in the administration 
of the realms of providence and grace, but which now since 
the incarnation, and especially in the mysterious interval that 
followed the crucifixion, had rested in silence and self-abne- 
gation. 4 

This contrast, however, of the ‘flesh’ and the ‘spirit’ 
admits of another explanation equally reconcilable, I con- 
ceive, with that view of the passage, that we are now consider- 
ing. Ordinarily, as you are aware, these terms are used to 
distinguish respectively the natural and the regenerate state 
of man—the latter as even now begun in the children of God, 
and tending ever to its consummation in the resurrection, 
when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and the 
natural body shall itself be changed into a fitting spiritual 
organ of the sanctified and glorified spirit. But this change 
also our blessed Lord underwent, in rising from the dead. 
In His case, as in ours, ‘that was not first which is spiritual, 
but that which is natural; and afterward that which is 


* Rom. 1: 3,4 3; I Tim, 3: 16, (ἐφανερώϑη ἐν σαρκὶ, ἐδικαιώϑη ἐν πνευματι.) 
Comp. the διὰ πνεύματος αἰωνίου of Heb. 9 : 14. 


242 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


spiritual. He had been in all things made like unto His 
brethren—in all points tempted like as we are, though with- 
out sin. Conceived of the Virgin by the power of the Holy 
Ghost, He was ever, and from the beginning, a ‘holy thing.’ 


In that consisted the great, and the only, difference between. 


His manhood and ours. The second Adam, while He taber- 
nacled among us, was no reflection or repetition of the first 
Adam, as God created him. The Babe of Bethlehem was 
‘made a curse for us.’ Not only did He assume our nature ; 
He assumed it in that state of condemnation, and humiliation, 
and weakness of the flesh, into which it was brought by the 
fall. Before, therefore, He could save us after the power 
of an endless life, He needed Himself to be made perfect 
through sufferings, and saved from death. The curse could 
pass away only through the exhaustion of its terrors on Him 
who bore it for our sakes. The whole life of the flesh must 
come to a bloody and perpetual end. Hewas ‘put to death 
in fiesh. And then, that He might not, after all, lose the 
gracious end for which He suffered, but, as the ‘ quickening 
Spirit’ of the new creation, might beget sons in His own 
heavenly likeness, and, so ‘bring us to God,’ He was himself 
also, as an equally indispensable preliminary, ‘ guzckened in 
Spirit. ™ 

Observe, then, that before His manifestation in flesh, and 
after His resurrection, our Lord Jesus Christ may be said to 
have lived in spirit. In the latter case His spiritual humanity 
subsisted in mysterious personal union with the Divine es- 
sence. But the spiritual element was common to both con- 
ditions of His being. And in both the excelling glory was 
the Divine; insomuch that when He, who was ‘put to de&th 
2 flesh, was ‘ quickened in spirit, it would be fully accordant 
with the analogy of Scripture to overlook the economical 
modification, and speak of Him as reéntering the glory 
which He had with the Father before the world was.f Just 
as Immanuel could say of Himself, ‘Before Abraham was, I 


ἜΤ Cor.'15 244, 45, 53; Heb. 2: 10, 173 42 355 5 295 τ 1. ΠΟ eee 
Gal 3 : 13. 
{ John 17: 5. 


4 





Lecture XXII —Chapter 3 : 18-20. 243 


am. ... 1 came forth from the Father, and am come into 
the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father,’ so, 
on the same ground of the unchangeable and all-pervading 
identity of His Godhead—‘the same yesterday, and to-day, 
and for ever’*—the inspired writers freely and everywhere 
represent Him, to whom they all bear witness, as remaining 
one and the same Person through all historical transitions, 
and through every variety of experience and operation.t In 
the bold, popular language ofthe New Testament, He, who 
was in the beginning with God—by whom God made the 
worlds—who spake to Moses in Mount Sinai, and led the 
tribes through the wilderness—was in the fulness of time 
born of a woman, died on Calvary, arose from the dead, and 
now liveth at the right hand of God. Would it involve any 
ereater latitude of statement to say that, ‘ deing put to death 
in flesh, He was. ‘quickened in spirit’—made alive again in 
that higher sphere of spiritual energy and enlargement, in 
which He acted of old as the universal Lord, and in particu- 
Jar announced the coming wrath, and called the world to re- 
pentance, in the days of Noah, though at that time the lower 
nature of the God-Man, as now crowned with glory and honor, 
had no existence? 

It is objected that the phrase, ‘He went and preached, im- 
plies a personal locomotion, such as could not well be predi- 
cated of Him whose presence fills heaven and earth. But 
. this cannot be admitted as conclusive, when we read that 
very soon after the flood ‘the Lord came down to see the city 
and the tower which the children of men builded. And the 
Lord said: . . . Go to, det us go down, and there confound 
their language.’ $ And the parallel statement respecting the 
crucified and risen Saviour, that He ‘came and preached 
peace to them which were afar off, and to them that were 
nigh, § when that ministry certainly was fulfilled through His 
Spirit and Apostles, ς equally demonstrates that an actual bod- 
ily movement is not at all required to justify ne is really a 
perfectly familiar idiom. 


* John δι: 58; 16: 285) Heb. 13: 8. 
t See, for example, Phil. 2 : 5-11; Heb. 1 : 1-4, etc. 
taGen. LL : 5-. § Eph. 2:17. Comp. Acts 26 : 23, (Greek.) 


244 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


On the whole, therefore, I am disposed to acquiesce in this 
explanation of the passage, as fairly deducible from the words, 
and encumbered with the fewest difficulties. But of its com- 
parative merits in these respects you will be better able to 
judge, when we have glanced briefly at the more prominent 
rival theories. 


II. Of these the one that was generally received by the ear- 
lier Fathers, and has since been prevalent in the Roman Catho- 
lic Church, and has been adopted also by not a few eminent 
Protestant interpreters,* refers the preaching here mentioned 
to the time between the Lord’s death and His resurrection. 
It took place, therefore, in the world of spirits ; but in what 
it consisted, and to whom it was addressed, and for what pur- 
pose, and with what result—to these questions the most va- 
rious and discordant answers have been given by those who 
agree on the main point. Thus, it has been conceived of as 
directed against the devil and his angels; or as a procla- 
mation of judgment, or an offer of mercy, to the dead sin- 
ners of Noah’s time, or to all the unholy dead of former 
generations, those of Noah’s time being specified merely 
as belonging to the general class. Or it is restricted to 
the pious dead of previous dispensations, and sto them it 
brought assurance, consolation, and deliverance, if not from 
penal imprisonment and purgatorial fire, at least from 
that limbo of the fathers, or state of dim seclusion, in 
which they were held in ward and waiting, until the spirit of 
the Crucified One suddenly appeared among them, announced 
the completion of the redemption, and opened the kingdom 
of heaven to them and all believers. Or, finally, the transac- 
tion is thought to have combined in itself these elements of 
terror and of grace. Of course, the being ‘ guickened in spt- 
vit’ likewise occurred in the separate state, immediately after 
the crucifixion,f and, in so far as it affected our Lord’s hu- 
manity, consisted either in His soul’s liberation from the hin- 
dering and depressing influences of the body, or in the com- 


* Including Alford. 
t Some, however, as Alford, while thus explaining the going and preaching, 
refer the quickening to the resurrection. 


ee eee 





i 


: 
ἔ 
᾿ 
; 
a 
| 


Lecture XXII—Chapter 3 : 18-20. 245 


mencement of that higher spiritual life which was perfected 
at the resurrection and ascension. 

One modification of the view supposes that the antedilu- 
vian sinners spoken of had really been brought to conviction 
and a gracious repentance, if not directly through Noah’s ex- 
hortations, while God was patiently waiting and the ark was 
building, yet after the ark was shut, and by the actual burst- 
ing forth of the long-threatened vengeance, in which, therefore, 
they perished only as to the bodily life, while their spirits 
were to be saved in the day of the Lord. It is thus sought — 
to harmonize the explicit assertion of the text, that the preach- 
ing was to them, with the avoidance of any unscriptural no- 
tions respecting the conversion and salvation of the wicked 
after death. 

Of the theory in general it must be allowed that it has 
some points in its favor. Besides that, by laying the scene in 
Hades, or the invisible world, it attracts and stimulates the 
imagination, it is certainly natural, when we are told that 
Christ ‘preached to the spirits in prison, to think of them as 
being there at the time of the preaching.* And then the 
original sentence is so constructed} as readily to admit the 
idea—to say the least—that the disobedience of the spirits 
was not contemporaneous with the preaching, but of a much 
earlier date. 

These advantages, however, are, in my opinion, more than 
counterbalanced by certain weightier drawbacks : 

1. In the first place, you will have noticed that, not only 
does the view in question take on the most opposite forms, 
but even in its least objectionable form it assumes a good deal 
that is not found in the passage, nor anywhere else in Scrip- 
ture; as, for instance, that there had been repentance unto 
life in the case of those, of whom nothing more is said than 
that they were ‘ disobedient.’ | 

2. In the second place, while the clause, ‘ deing put to death, 
inadced, in flesh’ answers well to the preceding statement about 


* But see Ruth 1 : 8. 


+ Especially by the omission of the article before ἀπειϑήσασι, and by the addi- 
tion of ποτέ. 


246 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


Christ's having ‘suffered for: sins, the Righteous for the un- 
righteous,’ there is very little in the additional clause, ‘ daz 
quickened in spirit, as thus explained, to suggest the fulfil- 
ment of the great design of those sufferings, ‘that He might 
bring us to God.’ 

3. Again, I cannot but think that the whole theory attri- 
butes to the disembodied spirit of our Lord the exercise of a 
larger activity and authority than comports with what we are 
taught generally as to the state of the departed, or, in particu- 
lar, with His own deepest humiliation under the death of the 
curse. From that humiliation He emerged only on the morn- 
ing of the first day. 

4. And, lastly, in no other place is the word for gucckening 
employed, in the sense that is here ascribed to it, by many who 
defend this view. Its proper meaning is ¢o make alive, to im- 
part life,* and, wherever used in relation to the dead, it in- 
variably implies their return to life through resurrection. Ὁ 

These considerations, it appears to me, are at least sufficient 
to forbid a ready concurrence in this second general view, 
by whatever authority of names it may be supported—the 
view namely, that the ministry in question was performed by 
Christ in the spiritual world, while His body still slumbered in 
the garden. 


III. There is, however, a third view, that deserves to be 
mentioned as having been urged of late by a few distinguish- 
ed commentators. It avoids most of the objections that I 
have made to the second view, by taking the guickening of 
the dead Saviour as having been accomplished at His resur- 
rection. And then it supposes that the risen Christ went 
and preached—not, as some older interpreters would have it, 
through the Apostles to those then living under the yoke of 


* Not ¢o keep alive, which some (Corn. a Lapide, Henry More, Rosenmiiller, 
Augusti, Pott, and others) in vain seek to justify by the Old Testament use of 
the Piel and Hiphil of ran, (Ex. 1 : 17, 18, 22; Numb, 22 : 33, etc.,) the Vulgate 


use of vivifico, (1 Sam. 27:9; 2 Sam. ὃ : 2, etc.,) and the Septuagint and New 
Testament use of ζωογονέω, (Ex. I : 17, 18, 22, etc. ; Luke 17 : 33; Acts 7 : 19.) 
Teseenfohn 5: 215 ἜΤΙ. 4: 17; 8 s'113 1 Cor.:15 322: 
1 Huther, De Wette, Wiesinger. 


Lecture XXII—Chapter 3 : 18-20. 247 


the law, or in bondage to Satan* but in person, in Hades, to 
the departed spirits of the men of Noah’s time, bringing near 
to them also His great salvation. 

Of this I shall only say that, whilst a single clear testimony 
of Holy Writ suffices, with such as believe in its Divine in- 
spiration, for the establishment of any fact or doctrine, yet, 
when of a single obscure passage two interpretations are pos- 
sible, we shall do well to hold to that one which most easily 
coalesces with the general tenor of Scripture. And, applying 
this rule to the present case, we shall be confirmed, I think, ’ 
in our preference of the first and ordinary view, as that has 
already been stated. 


Let us, then, in conclusion see what practical lessons may 
be drawn from the passage as thus understood. 

1. We may well rejoice, in the first place, that He, who for 
our sakes was ‘put to death in flesh, has also for our sakes 
been ‘guickencd in spirit’? As another Apostle says: ‘If, 
when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the 
death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be 
saved by His life’+ By His death Christ frees us from the 
bond of our sins; by His life, and the communication of that 
same resurrection-life to us, He brings us to God. Only thus 
it is that, ‘as we have borne the image of the earthy, we 
shall also bear the image of the heavenly.’ ἢ 

2. In the second. place, it is for the glory of our Lord, and 
so for our greater assurance of faith, that Peter here reminds 
us that He, in whom alone we trust as the Captain of our sal- 
vation, was from the earliest times the Friend and Teacher of 
our sinful race—the source of every Divine message of warn- 
ing and grace, that reached it in the days of old. 

3. Again, you will note the solemn parallel, suggested by 
our Apostle in both his Epistles, as it had previously been 
more than once by Christ Himself,§ between ‘ ¢he days of 


* Socinus, Vorstius, Grotius, etc. Even Leighton fell latterly into this notion, 
which Brown also tries in vain to render plausible, or consistent with the Greek 
text. 

Tt Rom. 5: 10. +t 1 Cor. 15 : 49. 

§ 2 Pet.2:5; Luke 17: 26,27; Matt. 24 : 37-39. 


248 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


Noah’ and our own New Testament times. Now, brethren, 
even as then, the long-suffering of God is waiting upon men 
—patiently waiting—waiting until, as the very form of the 
original word implies, there is an end of waiting.* For now 
too, as then, there is a limit set—the day and the hour for the 
‘revelation of the righteous judgment of God. + Meanwhile 
amidst the ferment and rush of all worldly interests and pas- 
sions, our heavenly Noah, who ‘shall comfort us concerning 
our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which 
the Lord hath cursed,’$ is preparing the ark of His Church, 
and, by His messengers sent forth into all lands, is proclaim- 
ing at once the Divine ‘ goodness and severity.’§ Alas! how 
few, now as then, believe! and how many mock! But be not 
ye therefore, beloved, ashamed of your confidence. Now as: 
then, there is wrath coming on a world that has well-nigh ex- 
hausted the patience of the Lord ; and, now as then, there is 
but one Divinely ordained refuge. To all that hear me I ad- 
dress once more the warning—entreaty—command—of God’s 
infinite love. The days are evil—the face of the heavens 
gather blackness—and the old, sin-worn frame of earth gives 
shuddering premonitions of doom. ‘Turn you to the strong- 
hold, ye prisoners of hope. Be not faithless, but believing. 
Linger no longer. Make haste to flee into this only hiding- 
place from the wind and covert from the tempest, and there— 
there abide; till the storm is changed into a calm, and the 
winds are hushed, and the waves are still, and the company 
of the saved, standing together on their greater Ararat, shall 
look forth on the eternal bow encircling the new heavens and 
the new earth of their inheritance, and shall build their altars 
unto the Lord, whence shall ascend for ever the incense of 
their praise. 
/ 4. The occasion is a suitable one also for again |] asking you 
to remark, in the last place, how very differently Christ and 
His Apostles treated the Old Testament from some nowa- 
| days, who yet profess to honor them. Not only is the Old 
Testament continually appealed to in the New for proof of 


* Bengel: ‘Exspectabat, donec exspectandi finis erat.’ t Rom. 2: 5. 
t Gen. 5 : 20. § Rom. 11 : 22. || See p. 106. 


Lecture XXII—Chapter 3 : 18-20. 249 


doctrine, but—and it is especially noteworthy—not a few of 
the Old Testament narratives, which in the New are cited 
with all reverence, and turned to the most serious uses of 
evangelical exhortation, are just those at which modern wis- 
dom condescends merely to smile. The history of the crea- 
tion—the temptation and fall of man—the flood and the ark 
of Noah—Lot’s wife—the passage of the Red Sea—the heal- 
ing serpent—Balaam’s ass—the overthrow of Jericho—Eli- 
jah’s all-prevalent prayers—Jonah and the whale—with what 
self-complacent chuckling do our wits and savants amuse 
themselves over these, and such like, wonderful stories! 
And yet these, I repeat, are the very stories which our Lord 
and His inspired servants, in their calm and_ confident sim- 
plicity, do everywhere take for granted, and reason from, as 
‘undisputed and indisputable historical facts.* No doubt, the 
stories are wonderful ; they are truly miraculous—supernatu- 
ral. But with the supernatural and the miraculous, however 
sorely it may scandalize a Baden Powell and a Bishop Colenso, 
the faith of God’s children has no difficulty whatever. Nay, 
that is the element in which faith lives and moves, and has its 
being. Nor am I now at all undertaking to prove the credi- 
bility of these things. I merely assert that the man who 
does not, and as he says, cannot believe them, is equally in- 
capable, pretend what he may, of rendering due homage to 
our Lord Jesus Christ and His Apostles, who, it is manifest, 
did believe them. ‘The choice, then, remember, lies, not be- 
tween the Old Testament and the New, but between ‘the 
Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments,’ and 
the flippant, boastful, unstable conclusions of our scientific 
and very unholy age. Methinks, our wisdom will be shown, 
and our safety and blessing will be found, in holding fast by 
the former. ' 


* See p. 247, note ὃ; also Matt. 12 : 40; Luke 4 : 25-27; 17 : 32; John3: 14; 
ΤΟΥ τ ;,.2 Cory Lipase tml 2... 12, ΤᾺ; ἘΠΕ)» Τὶ 5.7, 749129, 230» James 
ἘΡΞΡΤΠ, τὸ; 2 Pet. 2 τὸ; Εἰς: 


LECTURE XXIII. 


PE EER. 2 toh, 22% 


‘THE like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us, (not the put- 
ting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward 
God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ: who is gone into heaven, and is on the 
right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto’ 
Him.’ 


THE immediate object of the writer being to comfort his 
brethren in their trials, and promote the work of their sancti- 
fication, (vs. 13-17,) he is showing them how it had fared with 
‘Christ, the holy vicarious Sufferer. He, to whom it was their 
‘greatest glory to be in all things conformed, had, ‘ zdeed,’ 
endured whatever the wrath of man can inflict on the martyrs 
of truth and righteousness. He had been ‘put to death in flesh’ 
But even so He did not finally perish. There presently en- 
sued His ‘quickening in spirit, whereby He regained that 
original condition of sovereign, gracious activity, in which He 
had existed and wrought from the beginning, and particularly 
in the former crisis of the world, ‘ the days of Noah. 

This reference to the deluge now serves to introduce a sort 
of parenthetical corroboration, drawn from the meaning and 
force of baptism, and then. the 22d verse completes the de- 
scription of the Saviour’s triumph. 


The main thought of the 21st verse is not essentially affect- 
ed by a slight change of reading,* which is, however, adopted 


* 6 (A, B,C, Sin.*, Vulgate, Cyprian; and editors generally from Erasmus 
down. Sin.’ has simply «ai,) for ᾧ. On doctrinal grounds apparently Calvin 
prefers the latter, which Bloomfield also retains, 


Lecture XXITI—Chapter 3 : 21, 22. 251 


in almost all editions of the Greek Testament, and which, in- 
stead of, ‘ The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also 
now save us, would be rendered thus: ‘ Which tn a like figure 
now saveth us also, even baptism.* In either case, if we re- 
gard merely what is expressed, and not also what may be sug- 
gested, the comparison is not between baptism and the ark, 
nor yet generally between the Christian salvation through 
baptism and Noah’s through water,t but between the baptis- 
mal use and import of water, as that is here explained, and 
the action of the same element in relation to Noah and his 
company. To all others, it is true, of that old time, it brought 
only a destroying vengeance; and so far one might rather 
have expected to find it said: ‘In the deluge water was the 
instrument of wrath, but now, ov the contrary, in baptism, of 
salvation.’ It has even been supposed that this is what Peter 
may have intended.§ But, as in the 20th verse there is no- 
thing whatever said of the perdition of the ungodly, so neither 
does the language of the 21st verse bear this interpretation. 
What it does seem most obviously to assert is, that zoz, as 
formerly, zve too, as well as the inmates of the ark, lifted up 
on the swelling but to them friendly waves, ave saved through 
water, and that in the one case there is, as our version phrases 
it, ‘a like figure’ of the other. 

The Apostle’s own word for this is one familiar to us under 
its English form, aztztype, which, accordingly, is here employed 
by many versions and commentators. But, as we now com- 
monly understand that word, it would here imply that the 
deluge was strictly a type, or a divinely appointed prefigura- 
tion, of baptism ; and this, whether true or not, is more than 


* ὃ καὶ ἡμᾶς (Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford, read tude, after Sin. A,) ἀντίτυ- 
πον νῦν (Sin. viv ἀντ) σώζει βάπτισμα. The καί belongs to ἡμᾶς, (ὑμᾶς,) and, 
whereas the common version makes βάπτισμα the subject of the verb, and ἀντί- 
τυπον an adjective in agreement with it, the relative, according to what I take to 
be the best construction of the clause, now becomes the subject, with ἀντίτυπον 
for its adjective and βάπτισμα in apposition. 

t So Whitby, Wesley, Martini. 

t So Beza, and many others. 

§ According to one gloss of Hesychius, ἐναντίος, which, indeed, comes nearer 
to the classical force of ἀντίτυπος, Hammond allows this explanation ; but it 
has been adopted by very few. 


252 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


can be inferred from the original. Only in sacred and patris- 
tic Greek, it would appear, does the term express resemblance 
at all;* and in every such instance the likeness, if not inci- 
dental, is held forth, not as the fulfilment of a prophecy—the 
substance which a type had foreshadowed—but as itself rather 
the reflection or counterpart of a model. Thus, in the only 
other place where the word occurs in the New Testament, 
Heb. 9 : 24, ‘Christ is not entered into the holy places made 
with hands, which are the figures ’—andtztypes—‘ of the true,’ 
some ¢ would even understand by it the copy of a copy—the 
copy, that is, not directly of the heavenly things, but of a pat- 
tern of the same,t shown to Moses in the mount. And so in 
the case before us, I incline to think, sz7zlarity, correspondence, 
is probably all that is meant.§ There is a certain likeness 
between the water, which in the days of Noah bore up the ark 
unharmed over the ruins of a world, and the water which 
now, as baptism, ‘saveth ws also, 

But what, you will ask, is baptism, then, a saving ordinance ? 
Certainly ; that is just what Christ’s Apostle here affirms. 
Nor is this the only place by any means, in which the New 
Testament speaks of baptism in a way that would now offend 
many good people, were it not that the perplexing phraseology 
is unquestionably scriptural. Recollect, for instance, Peter's 
own practical application of his pentecostal sermon: ‘ Repent, 
and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ 
for the remission of sins.’ And so Ananias in Damascus to 
the humbled persecutor: ‘ Arise, and be baptized, and wash 
‘away thy sins.’ Paul too expressly calls baptism ‘the laver 
of the water’ by which Christ purifies His Church ; and again, 
‘the laver of regeneration’ by which God saves us. Frequent- 
ly also he represents it as that by which we are united to 
Christ, and made partakers of His death and resurrection. 
Nay, Christ Himself, in sending forth His Gospel among all 


* Passow cites, as a classical example, Polyb. 6, 31. 8. But his interpretation, 
in Ghnlicher Form, is questionable. I should then prefer gegeniiber, over against. 

+ As Bleek and Stier. t Heb. 8: 5, τύπος. 

§ Hesychius: Avtitvmoc, ἴσος. ὅμοιος. In the Greek Church the bread and 
wine of the Eucharist are called ἀντίτυπα of the body and blood of Christ ; see 
Suicer’s Zhesauris, 5s. Us 


͵ 
Lecture XXITII1—Chapter 3 : 21, 22. 254 


nations, named baptism as one condition of salvation. We 
need not, then, hesitate to call it a saving ordinance. * 

But how does it save? Just as any other ordinance saves 
—not through any inherent virtue of its outward signs and 
processes, but solely as it is a channel for the communication 


of Divine grace, and used in accordance with the Divine in-/ 


tention. On the one hand, while grace is ordinarily dispensed 
through ordinances, it is not confined to them, God being ever 
higher than His own appointments, and acting, when it so 
pleases Him, independently of them altogether. And, on the 
other hand, there must be on the part of man, besides the ob- 
servance of the formal precept, a yielding of his whole nature 
to the quickening and transforming influence. 

Take for an example that greatest ordinance, the word of 
God. It‘is able,’ says James, (1 : 21,)‘to save your souls.’ But 


how? Not simply as it is preached, or heard, or read. That. 


it may be ‘the power of God unto salvation,’ it must first be 
accompanied with ‘ the demonstration of the Spirit,’ and then 
‘received with meekness, and so become ‘the engrafted 
word.’ It is not the foolishness of preaching that saves ; but 
‘it pleases God by the foolishness of preaching to save them 
that believe.’ + 

Now just so with baptism. Equally with the Gospel itself, 
it is a Divine institution, whereby God ordinarily dispenses 
His grace. But its whole efficacy is due to that grace of 
God, and to our fitting reception and use of the rite, not to 
its mere external administration, by whatsoever priestly or 
apostolic hand. Observe how Peter himself here defines his 
meaning. 

Water, he says, saves us—is saving us—exerting a salutary 
influence to that end; not, indeed, as water, nor even as the 
visible sign of invisible grace, but as ‘ daftzsm, and that in 
the fulness of its essential, evangelical import. This, on the 
side of the baptized, which, agreeably to the ethical and hor- 
tatory drift of the context, is alone presented, consists ‘zo?’ 


* Acts 2:38; 22:16; Eph. 5: 26, (καϑαρίσας τῷ λουτρῷ τοῦ ὕδατος ;) Tit. 
3: 5, (λουτροῦ ;) Gal. 3 : 27; Rom. 6: 3, 4; Col.2: 12; Mark 16: τό. 
t Rom. 1:16; 1 Cor. 1:21; 2:4. 


254 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


in ‘the putting away of the filth of the fiesh’*—not in any 
outward or ceremonial purity—not in such a ‘ purifying of the 
flesh, for instance, as was effected by the sacrifices and ‘di- 
vers washings’ of the law t—but in ‘ the answer of a good con- 
science toward God. Here it becomes evident that the Apos- 
tle is thinking only of the inward and spiritual, whatever 
difficulty there may be in ascertaining the precise import of 
the clause. 

The word for ‘azswer’t is in the New Testament found 
only in this place, and, according to its derivation and classi- 
cal usage, means rather @ question, enquiry. Hence a variety 
of interpretations, § such as these: the zuquiring, request, ap- 
plication to God of a good conscience for salvation, direction, 
etc. ; || the act of a good conscience in inquiring after, secking, 
God ,** the.interrogating a good conscience before God; +} the 
asking God for a good conscience; tt and so forth. But not 
one of these explanations appears to state any positive cha- 
racteristic of baptism as the initiatory rite of the Christian 
life. It is not easy to see in what sense it can be said, that 
the believer is at that time saved either by his own bare seek- 
ing or asking, or by his being himself interrogated. And, 
for this reason, while it is commonly believed that there is an 
allusion here to the catechising of the candidate, which pre- 
ceded the administration of the ordinance, there is also a 
quite general consent among commentators in favor of taking 
Peter’s expression as including the axswer to the question—a 
view in favor of which many things are alleged, with which 


* The words ἀπόϑεσις and ῥύπος are used only by Peter ; the former again in 
the second Epistle, ch. 1 : 14. 

+ Heb. 9 : 10, 13. ὦ ἐπερώτημα. ; 

§ According as συνειδήσεως is taken for a genitive of the subject or of the object, 
and this in connection with the sense put upon εἰς. 

|| So apparently some of the older Latin and English versions ; also Hammond, 
Wells, Bengel, Moldenhawer, Steiger, Jachmann, etc. 

** Bretschneider, Greenfield, Wahl, Winer, Von der Heydt, Alford. In sup- 
port of this, reference is made to Rom. 10:20; Sept. 2 Sam. 11 : 7; and the 
alata bal Se) was of the Old Testament—Greenfield’s phrase here. 


+t Diodati’s note, Stolz, Hottinger, supposes the interrogating to be ‘done by 


the priest instead of God, or by Divine authority.’ 
tt Seb. Schmidt, as cited by De Wette ; Wiesinger, Weiss. 


Lecture XXIII —Chapter 3 : 21, 22. 255 


you need not be troubled.* But it is worth mentioning that 
the old Syriac version gives this as the sense: when ye confess 
God with a pure conscience; and, among the earliest English 
versions, Tyndale and Cranmer have it thus: zz that a good 
conscience consenteth to God. 

Consider, then, what is scripturally implied in ‘a good con- 
scvence,’ 

It is, first of all, a blood-sprinkled conscience ; or, in the 
language of the Epistle to the Hebrews, a ‘heart sprinkled 
from an evil conscience,’ and so ‘having no more conscience 
of sins’—these having been for ever cancelled by the one 
effectual sacrifice of the cross. And then it is a sanctified 
conscience—a conscience ‘purged from dead works to serve 
the living God,’ and already assured of finding in that service 
‘all its salvation and all its desire.’ + 

When such a soul, therefore, comes to the baptismal font, 
it comes not in hesitancy or doubt, or in search of an un- 
known God, but solemnly to ratify in the appointed way its 
own previous act of selfsurrender. It enters within the sa- 
cred munitions of the everlasting covenant, and, laying hold 
of the promises, engages the Divine grace for its defence and 


* They are here subjoined for the sake of the critical reader: 1. On the 
general principle determining the signification of verbals in μα, ἐπερώτημα would 
denote, not the act of inquiring, (ἐπερώτησις,) but τὸ ἐπερωτηϑέν, the thing asked, 
(Stephens, 11066. “ἐπερώτημα 1. q. ἐρώτημα ;᾽ and this last he defines, ‘id de 
quo quis interrogat, 5. interrogatur ;’)—2. Some such explanation, even if it 
involve a metonymy, seems advisable in‘the case of ἐρώτημα (De Wette, Spruch) 
at Sir. 36 [3] : 3, and necessary in the case of ἐπερώτημα at Sept. Dan. 4: 14, 
(English Bible, 17.) In the latter instance the Hebrew is RODND, (Gesenius, 


causa, decretum ; Robinson, decree ;)—3. CEcumenius makes the word equivalent 
to ἀῤῥαβων, ἐνέχυρον, ἀπόδειξις, an earnest, pledge, demonstration ;—4. The glos- 
saries (see Stephens, vol. 8) define ἐπερωτῶμαι by promitto, spondeo, stipulor, and 
ἐπερῶτησις by ὁμολογία, stipulatio ; as, in like manner, Greek law-books call a 
promise ἐπερωτηϑέν, Grotius referring to Theophilus, Zystitutiones de verborum 
Obligationibus. (Taking éreg. here in this sense, several German commentators, 
including Pott, Meyer, De Wette, and Huther, prefer also to consider συνειδήσεως 
an objective genitive, like ῥύπου of the previous clause ;=¢he promise, pledve, to 
God, of keeping a good conscience ;)—5. Tertullian perhaps alludes to the present 
text in De Res. Carn. 48: ‘Anima enim non lavatione, sed responsione, sanci- 
tur’: ‘The soul is consecrated, not by washing, but by answering or restipula- 
tion ;’—6. And, finally, an analogous use of ixterrogatio, as=sponsio, is found in 
Seneca, De Benef. 3. 15. 
Ἷ Heb! 102 2, 22; 9.: 14... Σ᾽ ΘΠ" 22.2 5. 


256 Lectures on the Lirst Epistle of Peter. 


guidance. The transaction. is one wholly between it and 
God, and, on the part of the soul, could not be better de- 
scribed than as its ‘azswer’ to the overtures and commands 
of the Gospel—‘ the stipulation toward God* of a good con- 
science. God having said, ‘Repent, and believe in the Lord 


Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,’ the answer of the soul - 


in baptism is, ‘Behold, I am vile. Wash me, and I shall be 
clean. Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief’ God 
says, ‘Come unto me, and I will give thee rest; and the soul 
answers, ‘Lo, I come. To whom shall I go but unto Thee? 
Thou hast the words of eternal life.’ Says God, ‘Thou art 
mine; and I will be thy God ;’ and the response of the won- 
dering and adoring soul is, ‘My Lord and my God.’—Such 
is the apostolic idea of true Christian baptism, considered 
merely in respect of what it involves on the side of the bap- 
tized ; and of such baptism certainly we need not fear to say, 
that it saves us. 

But you will now observe farther, on what depends this 
saving efficacy of baptism, even in the case of a penitent and 
obedient soul. It ‘saveth us... through} the resurrection 
of Fesus Christ’—in consequence, that is, of the relations 
into which we are thus brought to the risen Saviour.f ‘Know 
ye not,’ argues Paul, when expounding what he regarded as 
the first principles of the Gospel salvation, ‘that so many of 
us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His 
death? Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into 
death: that, like as Christ was raised up from the dead -by 
the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in new- 
ness of life. For, if we have been planted together in the 
likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His 
resurrection.’§ In the very opening of our Epistle, the writer 
had spoken of the regeneration, and. the consequent filial 


* Such is the Greek order and construction: ἐπερώτημα εἰς Θεόν. 

t dvd—as in ch. 1 : 3. 

ὦ This is the common construction of δὲ ἀναστάσεως I. X., and is better than 
any other that has been proposed ; as with the whole of the sentence, (Steiger ;) 
—with ἐπερώτημα (Piscator, Grotius, Moldenhawer, Carpzov, Augusti, Pott, 
Hensler, Meyer ;)—with ovvevd. dy. εἰς ©., as expressing the means by which 
such a conscience is obtained, (Grashof, Brown.) 

§ Rom. 6 : 3-5. 


Ἃ 


Lecture XXIII—Chapter 3 : 21, 22. 257 


standing and hope of the Church, as the fruit of our Lord’s 
deliverance from death. Here he traces to the same fact in 
the history of redemption the saving power of baptism, as 
one of those ligatures of grace that connects Christ’s Body 
with its living Head. 

The whole discussion tends to show how very far the tone 
of the New Testament, in dealing with the sacraments, is 
from justifying either the faithless indifference and neglect 
with which they are regarded by many Protestants as inno- 
cent but superfluous formalities, or the Romish superstition 
that would turn them into magical charms and incantations 
at the disposal of the priest. 

‘In treating of.the sacraments,’ says Calvin, ‘two things 
are to be considered ; the sign and the thing signified. Thus, 
in baptism the sign is water; but the thing signified is the 
cleansing of the soul by the blood of Christ, and the mortifi- 
cation of the flesh. Both of these things are comprised in 
the institution of Christ ; and, whereas often the sign appears 
to be ineffectual and fruitless, that comes through men’s 
abuse, which does not annul the nature of the sacrament. 
Let us learn, therefore, not to tear apart the thing signified 
from the sign ; though at the same time we must be on our 
guard against the opposite fault, such as prevails among Pa- 
pists. For, failing to make the needful distinction between 
the thing and the sign, they stop short at the outward ele- 
ment, and there confidently rest their hope of salvation. The 
sight of the water, accordingly, withdraws their minds from 
Christ’s blood and the grace of the Spirit. Not reflecting 
that of all the blessings there exhibited Christ alone is the © 
‘Author, they transfer to water the glory of His death, and 
bind the hidden energy of the Spirit to the visible sign. 
What, then, must be done? Let us not separate what the 
Lord has joined together: We ought in baptism to recognize 
a spiritual laver; we ought in it to embrace a witness to the 
remission of sins and a pledge of our renewal; and yet so to 
leave both to Christ and the Holy Spirit the honor that is 
theirs, as that no part of the salvation be transferred to the 
sign.’ * 


* *Porro quum de Sacramentis agitur, duo sunt consideranda, signum et res. 


258 Lectures on the first Epistle of Peter. 


Having thus, in the sweep of his discourse, been brought 
within full view again of the person of his Lord, the Apostle 
at once confirms and clenches the various motives to a pa- 
tient, holy life, that had been drawn from the Saviour’s past 
career, by a reference to His present condition of glory and 
power. ‘ Who ts on the right hand of God,* having gone into 
heaven, angels and authorities and powers having been made 
subject unto Him, + 

If the self-denial and sufferings of the holy Jesus were 
great, great also was His reward. When the crucified Naza- 
rene rose from the dead, it was no ordinary triumph that 
awaited Him. His path was upward, far above all thrones of 
earth, to the very topmost pinnacle of honor and dominion in 
heaven itself. He ‘went into heaven, and there was wel- 
comed by shouting angels, and by the smile of His Father, 
saying unto Him: ‘Sit Thou at my right hand, until I make 
Thine enemies Thy footstool.’ ἢ 

Behold, then, O suffering Church of God! this great Exam- 
ple after which thou art called—the Man of Sorrows, who 
‘suffered for’ thy ‘sins,’ and was ‘put to death in flesh, now 
at the last living and reigning, in glory spiritual and divine, 
the Viceroy of the Universe. The mightiest of created beings 
—the hierarchy of angels, God’s own messengers—through- 


Ut in Baptismo signum est aqua: res autem ablutio animz per sanguinem 
Christi, et carnis mortificatio. Horum utrumque sub se complectitur Christi 
institutum. Quod autem szepe inefficax et absque fructu signum apparet, id fit 
hominum abusu, qui Sacramenti naturam non tollit. Discamus ergo rem sig- 
natam a signo non divellere. Quanquam simul a diverso vitio cavendum est, 
quale inter Papistas regnat. Quia enim inter rem et signum non distinguunt, ut 
oportet, consistunt in externo elemento, et illic locant salutis fiduciam. Itaque 
aquz conspectus eorum mentes a Christi sanguine et gratia Spiritus abstrahit! 
Christum non cogitant bonorum omnium, que illic offeruntur, unicum esse au- 
thorem, gloriam mortis ejus ad aquam transferunt, arcanam Spiritus virtutem 
alligant visibili signo. Quid ergo agendum est? Ne separemus que a Domino 
conjuncta sunt. Debemus in Baptismo agnoscere spirituale lavacrum: debemus 
illic testimonium remissionis peccatorum et renovationis nostrz pignus amplecti ; 
sic tamen relinquere et Christo et Spiritui Sancto suum honorem, ut nulla pars 
salutis ad signum transferatur.’ 

* This is the Greek order.—Sin.? omits τοῦ before Yeod.—The Vulgate addi- 
tion, ‘deglutiens mortem, ut vite eternz hzredes efficeremur,’ (szallowing up 
death, that we might be made heirs of eternal life, ) is without authority, and pro- 
bably came from the margin. 

{ mogevteic ... ὑποταγέντων. 1 Pss TLo! Σ ἄς 


Lecture XXTII—Chapter 3 : 21, 22. 259 


out all their ranks and provinces of authority and power, are 
‘made subject unto Him, who for a little while was ‘made 
lower’ than they.* Now they ever stand before Him, His 
willing, constant, flaming ministers. ‘The chariots of God 
are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels: the Lord is 
among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place.’ It is no abate- 
ment to the ardor of their loyalty, and the alacrity of their 
service, that the Son of the Highest took not on Him the na- 
ture of their companions that fell, but became the Son of man 
-— ‘bone of our bones and flesh of our flesh’—or that a human 
Form shall for ever fill the throne, around which they adore. 
Nay, it is the untiring burden of their song, that He who is 
their Lord,as He is ours, was once dead, and that He died 
for us. ‘I beheld,’ says John, ‘and I heard the voice of many 
angels . . . and the number of them was ten thousand times 
ten thousand, and thousands of thousands ; saying with a loud 
voice: Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, 
and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, 
and blessing.’ + 


Ἂ ΓΕΒ», 257475 9. 55: 68,: 17. Gen, τ τ; ἜΘΥΕ ΤΣ, Τὺ 


LECTURE XXIP. 


1 PETER 4 : 1-6. 


‘ FORASMUCH then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves 
likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased 
from sin; that he no longer should: live the rest of his time in the flesh to the 
lusts of men, but to the will of God. For the time past of our life may suffice us 
to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, 
excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries: Wherein 
they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, 
speaking evil of you: who shall give account to Him that is ready to judge the 
quick and the dead. For this cause was the Gospel preached also to them that 
are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live ac- 
cording to God in the spirit.’ 


THE Epistle here resumes its hortatory course, which is 
still made to start directly from the cross of Him who is now 
on the right hand of God. 


‘Christ, then’—the Lord of glory Himself—‘ having suf- 
Sered* for us’+—for us sinners, for us as sinners—‘2z72 the 
flesh ;’ in other words, Christ having, for the sake of our re- 
demption from sin, suffered even to the destruction of His 
natural life in the flesh, though with such a glorious final 
issue from all His sorrows, (ch. 3 : 18, 22.) ‘do ye also arm 
yourselvest with the same mind’—with the same mind, that 
is, as Christ, in regard to sin, and suffering for righteousness’ 
sake, (ch. 3:17.) Ye too, like your Saviour, are called toa 


* Χριστοῦ οὖν παϑόντος ;—Sin.! ἀποϑανόντος. 

+ Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford, cancel the words ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν, after B, C, and 
the Vulgate. The Syriac and Sin.’ read ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν, (for you. ) 

t καὶ ὑμεῖς... ὁπλίσασϑε, This verb does not elsewhere occur in the New 
Testament. 


Lecture XXIV —Chapter 4 : 1-6. 261 


warfare with sin, and in this holy strife ye too have already 
suffered in the flesh, and may yet have to resist to the ruin 
of all fleshly interests, yea, unto blood. Beware of going into 
battle in your own strength—in the strength of a merely hu- 
man virtue. Take unto you the whole armor of God. Let this 
mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. That will be 
your best and sufficient defence against the assaults of temp- 
tation, and the fiery darts of hell—your strong consolation 
also in the hour of sorest trial. In entering into the fellow- 
ship of Christ’s sufferings, you attain to far more than an ex- 
ternal conformity to His death. Your true safeguard in the 
midst of all perils is in being identified with your Lord, and 
sharing, so far as is allowed to you, not merely His sufferings, 
but the very ¢hought—intent—mind,* by which He was ani- 
mated and sustained. This alone will suffice to secure the 
gracious result of affliction ; ‘for he that hath suffered in + the 
flesh hath ceased from sin’—has been brought to an effectual 
pause ἢ in the career of shame and death. This is true alike 
of all who in the Christian sense so suffer.§ When Christ 
Himself became obedient unto death, not only was sin the 
cause of all His woe; but He endured the cross in willing, 
conscious antagohism to sin. Made sin for us, He died unto 
sin once for all, and now and henceforth He is, in a far wider 
and more absolute sense than it could be affirmed of Him in 
the days of His flesh, without sin. The shedding of His 
blood, moreover, was for our ransom and cleansing. If this, 
therefore, was in His heart, when He suffered for us—died 
for all—then they, who being joined to the Lord are one spirit 
with Him, judge that all died in Him; and how shall they 


* The larger sense of ἔννοια, (which occurs once again, and in the plural, at 
Heb. 4 : 12,) as=mind, disposition, Gesinnung, (Bretschneider, Meyer, Steiger, De 
Wette, Olshausen, Huther, Alford, etc,) is thought by Passow to be exemplified 
in Eur. 7/7. 1026. Diod. 2. 30. Isocr. 112. d. Compare the Septuagint usage 
in Proverbs, for maya, (23. ain, ) itor, ΓΞ, (45 bis) 252. 2.) Εἴς: 

+ Wells, Lachmann, Alford, cancel ἐν (Sin.? A, C, G, and the Amiatine Vul- 
gate.)—év oapki, iz the flesh ; σαρκί, as to the flesh, (Winer.) 

¢ Winer observes that πέπαυται may be understood passively; and it is so 
taken’by Stolz, Jaspis, De Wette, Wiesinger, Alford, etc. 

§ Erasmus, Semler, Jachmann, take ὁ παϑὼν ἐν σαρκί as a designation of 
Christ. 


262 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


that are dead to sin live any longer therein? For he that is 
dead is freed from sin. And accordingly every man, who 
suffers as Christ suffered, being crucified with Him, thereby 
shows that he too, in aim and effort, and in the law of his 
mind, has broken with sin. Nay, he rejoices in sufferings— 
he glories in tribulations—because, while thus filling up what 
is lacking of the afflictions of Christ, he is at the same time 
forwarding the work of his own perfecting, as well as that of 
the entire household of faith.* 

Such, I need not say, is the tenor of a very large portion 
of Paul’s teaching, and it may serve likewise to develop in a 
paraphrastic way the real meaning of a verse which has per- 
plexed commentators. The true key to its interpretation is 
found, as I suppose, in the perfect accord of the Petrine with 
the Pauline theology, on the point especially of that union 
between Christ and His people, which begets at once sympa- 
thy of feeling, and a community of interest and experience, 
between the Head and the members of the one Βοάγ. 

The same principle of explanation is, of course, equally 
available for that other construction of the sentence, which 
many prefer, and which is to this effect: ‘ Chrest, then, having 
suffered for us in the flesh, do ye also arm yourselves with the 
same thought’—the same that Christ had, when He suffered ; 
namely— that he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased 
from sin. ὁ But, as neither the context nor the Gospel his- 
tory contains any intimation of this general proposition hav- 
ing been specially the thought of the suffering Saviour, we 
shall do well to retain the common arrangement. 

Literally rendered, the second verse would read thus: ‘ So 
as no longer to live the remaining time in the flesh to the lusts 

* Heb. 12: 4; 9 : 28 compared with 4:15; Eph.6:13; Phil.2:5; 3:10; 
1 Cor.6: 173; 2Cor. 5 : 14, (ἀπέθανεν... ἀπέϑανον. Comp.-4: I0,) 21; Rom. 
5 : 3-53 ch. 6throughout; 7: 4, 23; Gal. 2: 19, 20; 6:14; Col.1: 24; 2:20; 
3 : 3, etc. 

+ See 1 Pet. 2: 3, 4,24; 3: 163 4:13; 5: 14, etc.; and comp. pp. 288-9. 

{ Pagninus, Calvin, Beza, the Geneva Bible, Wiesinger, and many others. 
Burton (and Schirmer) would explain thus: ‘Arm yourselves with this considera- 
tion : that is, let this idea of Christ having died for us serve as your defence 
against the lusts of the flesh.” Others thus: ‘Arm yourselves with this very 


thought, namely, that he that hath, εἴς. But this, as Pott rightly objects, would 
have required ταύτην τὴν ἔννοιαν. 


Lecture XXI V—Chapter 4 : 1-6. 263 


of men, but to the will of God;’* and in this form it is better 
connected with the former half, than with the latter, of the 
verse preceding, so that it shall express the victory to be 
achieved by those to whom Peter was writing, when, in obe- 
dience to the previous direction, they should have thoroughly 
equipped themselves for the fight of faith. This connection, 
accordingly, is adopted by very many.f 

Mark, then, the two governing rules of life that are here 
contrasted—‘ ¢he lusts of men’—of men in the state of natural 
atheismt{—and ‘the will of God’ These are ‘contrary the 
one to the other,’ and no man can serve both. There was a 
time, indeed, when, as the Apostle again reminds his breth- 
ren, they too were the servants of sin—serving divers lusts 
and pleasures—fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the 
mind—the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the 
pride of life ||—-what he had called ‘the former lusts in their 
ignorance, (ch. 1:14.) But that time was past. They had 
now come under the sway of a new lordship, ‘ the wll of God, 
to which must be consecrated whatever was yet left of the pre- 
sent life in the body—‘ the remaining time’ of their sojourning 
(ch. 1 : 17) in this now to them alien world. The will of God 
—the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning them—was their 
sanctification, through whatever gracious, whatever painful, 
discipline of love; and in no other way could they codperate 
with it, and so meet the requirements of their high calling, 
than by arming themselves with the mind of Christ, whereby 
He was enabled in the days of His flesh to do always the 
things that pleased the Father, in the continual fulfilment of 
all righteousness, and in the meek endurance of His Father's 
will. ** 


For the sake of confirming them in this new walk of god- 


* εἰς τὸ μηκέτι... τὸν ἐπίλοιπον ἐν σαρκὶ βιῶσαι χρόνον. The adjective and 
the verb occur nowhere else in the New Testament. 

+ As by Cocceius, Hammond, Semler, Meyer, De Wette, Bloomfield, Trollope, 
Brown, Peile, Wiesinger, Alford, etc.; most of whom, with Griesbach and 
Knapp, also put the intervening clause, ὅτε... ἁμαρτίας, into a parenthesis. - 

ἘΣ 2s: 12 § Gal. 5:17; Matt. 6 : 24. 

PRome6:: 2015) Tite st: 3)-eb pha 73's /a) Toki 2 i816; 

** 1 Thess. 4:3; 5:18; John8: 29; Matt. 3:15. 


264 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


liness, the writer appeals directly to their present sense of the 
ignominy of their former courses. What he asserts in the 
third verse is, not that ‘ che time past of our life may suffice us 
to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, but that it does suf- 
fice. It is, even as to form, not the suggestion of a reason- 
able probability, but the statement of an actual and perfectly 
well understood fact. Even so, however, far less is.expressed 
than is implied. A close translation of the whole verse might 
be this: ‘ For sufficient for us is the past time of life* to have 
wrought the will t of the Gentiles, having walked in lascivious- 
nesses’ —or lascivious ways; the plural representing the mani- 
fold varieties of heathen uncleanness—‘ dusts, wzne-debauches, 
revels, carouses, and unlawful zdolatries’~ These are ‘the 
lusts of men’ spoken of before—excesses to which human 
nature, left to itself, is ever prone. Here they are called ‘the 
well of the Gentiles’—that in which the heathen love them- 
selves to indulge, and desire all others to bear them company. 
Now, says Peter, we have had enough of all that ; need I tell 
you how much more than enough, when every hour of the 
past that has been so spent we cannot think of without hor- 
ror and the bitterest remorse? ‘What fruit had ye then in 
those things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of 
those things is death. § Having then already lost, and worse 
than lost, so much precious time in the service of sin, let us 
at least with earnestness redeem for the service of God all 
that remains. 


* Αρκετὸς (occurs twice elsewhere, Matt. 6 : 34 and 10:25) γὰρ ἡμῖν (Sin.? 
ὑμῖν) ὁ παρεληλυϑὼς χρόνος τοῦ Biov. The simple copula in the indicative is pre- 
ferable also to such terms as, 7¢ ought to suffice, (Grotius, Diodati, Martin, Beau- 
sobre and L’Enfant, Steiger,) Ze¢ zt saffice, (Martini, Carpzov, De Wette, Bloom- 
field,) etc. —The words τοῦ βίου are bracketed by Hahn and cancelled by Wells, 
Steiger, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford, etc., after Sin. A, B, C, many cursive 
MSS., Syriac, Vulgate, etc. 

+ Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford read κατειργάσϑαι, and, for ϑέλημα, they and 
others read βούλημα (Sin. A, B, C, etc.) 

t πεπορευμένους (Sin.: πορενομένους) ἐν ἀσελγείαις, επιϑυμίαις, οἰνοφλυγίαις, 
(in the New Testament only here,) κώμοις, πότοις, καὶ ἀϑεμίτοις (in the New 
Testament is found but once again, and in an address of Peter, Acts Io : 28) 
εἰδωλολατρείαις.----Α5 distinct from οἰνοφλουγίαις, πότοις (itself also ἅπαξ Aeyoue- 
vov in the New Testament) seems, from its connection here with κώμοις, as well 
as from the classical usage, to denote socza/ drinking-bouts. ὃ Rom. 6: 21. 


δῶ) XETV-—Chapter 4: 1-6. 268 


The way in which the Gentiles are here referred to has 
sometimes been adduced* in support of the theory of the 
Jewish origin of those addressed. But any show of plausi- 
bility there might otherwise be in this is at once neutralized 
by the mention of a manifold idolatry as the climax of the 
wickedness of their former life, that particular form of ungod- 
liness having been, as is well known, the object of special 
abhorrence to the Jews of that age.f And then, indepen- 
dently of this, the evidence for the opposite view, to wit, that 
the readers of the Epistle were mainly of Gentile extraction, 
is sufficiently ample to justify us in believing that that desig- 
nation is here used in opposition, not to their original na- 
tionality, but to their present position as the people of God, 
(ch. 2: 9, 10.)# 

Nor yet is it necessary to suppose that all of those readers, 
any more than the writer who, according to the text followed 
by our English translators, identifies himself with them,$ had 
once been chargeable with all the crimes, and ‘filthiness and 
superfluity of naughtiness,’ || here specified. Probably the 
most that could be said, in respect to some at least of the 
grosser sins, was just what Paul said to the Christians of 
Corinth, after enumerating a long list of similar abomina- 
tions: ‘And such were some of you.’** But, without deny- 
ing by any means the existence among the heathen of a 
comparative virtue, it is to be considered that the corrupt na- 
ture, out of which flow the foulest pollutions of society, is 
common to all unrenewed men, and that therefore, in point 
both of legal relation and spiritual faculty, the respectable 
moralist who knows not God stands in the same class with 
the more outrageous transgressor, and must fall under a like 
condemnation. On this principle we need have no difficulty 
in admitting the universal truth of Paul’s address to still 
another Gentile church: ‘And you hath He quickened, who 
were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past ye 


*As by Hensler, Jachmann, Weiss. tT Rom. 2 : 22. ἢ De Wette. 

§ The ἡμεῖν, bracketed by Knapp, is cancelled by Wells, Lachmann, Tischen- 
dorf, Alford, with the approbation of De Wette and Wiesinger, on the authority 
of A, B, the Syriac and Vulgate versions, etc. 

|| James 1 : 21. ** y Cor. 6; II. 


266 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


walked according to the course of this world, according to 
the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now work- 
eth in the children of disobedience: among whom also we 
all’—Jews as well as Gentiles—‘had our conversation in 
times past in the lusts of our flesh.’* 


In the fourth verse the Apostle adverts to the perplexity 
and irritation of the heathen at witnessing the change that 
had come over their late comrades in iniquity. ‘ Wherein 
they think it strange that ye run not with them 20 the same 
excess of riot. The true construction, however, is slightly 
different from what this might lead you to suppose. The first 
word, wherein, refers, not to the vices just mentioned,f but 
to the ground or occasion of the wonder, to wit, that reforma- 
tion of life which is implied in the preceding Context, and is 
again, by a sort of apposition, distinctly assumed in the re- 
mainder of the verse; as if it were said, ‘whereof they think 
strange’{—or, at which fact, or state of affairs, they feel 
strange ; the fact, namely—‘ ¢hat ye run not with them into the 
same excess of riot, or the same outpouring, or,as many§ under- 
‘stand the word, the same slough, mire, sink, of profligacy,|| as 
they, or as yourselves formerly. 

The whole phrase vividly describes the rush of the multi- 
tude to do evil—that general working of all uncleanness with 
greediness, which is the unfailing characteristic of every com- 
munity in which is no knowledge, and no fear, of the living 
and true God.** In the absence of all Divine and eternal 
sanctions, the restraints of conscience and shame oppose but 
a feeble and ineffectual barrier to the torrent of evil ; and that 


* Eph. 2 : 1-3. 

+ Doddridge: ‘2 vespect to which abominable course of life.’ Macknight: 
“on account of your former life.’ 

t ἐν © ξενίζονται. There are other explanations of ἐν @, but they are scarcely 
worth mention. 

§ Moldenhawer, Macknight, Pott, Steiger, Bloomfield, Trollope, Brown, 
Huther, Alford, etc. Hesychius, φυρμόν. 

Ι εἰς... τῆς ἀσωτίας ἀνάχυστν. The last word does not occur elsewhere in the 
New Testament. For its meaning, the gloss of Suidas, βλακεία, ExAvowp=slack- 
a1ess, looseness, softness, has been followed by Gerhard, Schéttgen, Passow. For 
dowrtia, see Trench, Syxonyms of the NV. T., ὃ xvi. 

** Ex, 23:2; Eph. 4:19; Gen. 20:11; Bengel: ‘turmatim, avide.’ 


Lecture XXIV.—Chapter 4 : 1-6. 267 


very social nature, which was meant for the shelter and en- 
couragement of virtue, adds a fearful and almost irresistible 
momentum to the current. 

Such was eminently the case in that dissolute age, when 
the saving grace of God appeared among men, ‘teaching them 
that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, they should live 
soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world.’* Those 
whose eyes were opened to discern the presence of the heaven- 
ly Stranger, and to sit as disciples at her feet, were soon 
missed from the altars of idolatry and the familiar haunts of 
sin ; and their old friends and neighbors marvelled, not know- 
ing what to make of the change, or how to account for it. 
Many, we may be sure, were the coaxing solicitations, many 
the impatient remonstrances, many the contemptuous jeers, 
employed to break the spell of this sudden and mysterious 
arrest, and induce the laggards in the race to resume their 
places in the disordered crowd. To all there was but one an- 
swer, which may be given in the words of one of the earliest 
of the Fathers of the Church: ‘ There is,’ said Clement of 
Alexandria, ‘There is for us a limit, even the cross of our 
Lord. 7 The reply, however, had nothing in it to satisfy the 
unbelieving, giddy multitude. It rather imbittered their scorn, 
and aroused their anger and the darkest suspicions. They 
‘ spake evil of’~ those whom they could not understand, and 
could no longer either persuade or coerce into a companion- 
ship in sin. They called them ungenial, proud, morose, de- 
spisers of the gods and the ancestral customs, practising in 
secret even fouler orgies than those from which they had pub- 
licly withdrawn. 


‘Who shall render an account, ὃ adds Peter sternly, ‘to Him 
who is ready to gudge the living || and the dead; and who is 
none other than that same Lord Jesus Christ, for whose 
sake you thus suffer reproach. They had already been told 
(ch. 2 : 23) how He deported Himself under similar revilings. 


Fetus TT, 12s 1 Peedag. iii. 12: ὅρον ἔχομεν, τὸν σταυρὸν τοῦ Κυρίου, 
1 For βλασφημοῦντες, Sin.’ has καὶ βλασφημοῦσιν. 
ὃ ἀποδώσουσι Adyov—as Heb. 13 : 17. || ζῶντας. 


268 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


He ‘reviled not again . ... but committed Himself to Him 
that judgeth righteously.’ And they knew also how gloriously 
His silent, uncomplaining faith was justified by the event. 
Raised from the dead, seated at the right hand of God, (ch. 
3: 21, 22,) He was now ‘7zeady, every obstacle from earth and 
hell being taken out of the way—‘ ready’ in His own Divine 
endowments and authority—‘ veady,’ as soon as the time ap- 
pointed of the Father should arrive *—to ascend in His turn 
the tribunal, as the Judge of all the earth—of the living and 
the dead—of His friends and His foes. Then shall the re- 
proach of the former be wiped away, and the latter, who were 
ever ready enough to call them to'a harsh account, (ch. 3 : 15,) 
shall themselves ‘ vender an account’ of all their hard speeches 
and unjust judgments and cruel persecutions ; 7 and from the 
decisions of that day there shall be no appeal. ‘ Behold, the 
Judge standeth before the door.’ ἢ 

That the crucified and risen Saviour is ‘ ordained of God to 
be the judge of the living and the dead’ is a fundamental 
truth of the Gospel, which, as Peter himself told Cornelius 
and his friends, Christ expressly commanded His Apostles to 
proclaim and testify to the people.§ It is, accordingly, very 
prominent both in their discourses and their writings ; and 
the universality of this judgment is everywhere attested or 
assumed. It is to embrace the two great divisions of man- 
kind—those who shall then be found alive on the earth, and 
those also who shall then be in their graves. 


With this last thought the sixth verse seems plainly to con- 
nect itself. ‘For, for this cause’ ||—or to this end—‘ was the 
Gospel preached** also to the dead,t} that they might be judged, 


᾿ς * John 5 : 22,27; Acts17:31. With ἑτοίμως ἔχοντι compare ἑτοιμήν of ch. 

I: 5, and see p. 50. 

+ Jude 15. t James 5: 9. § Acts 10 : 42. 

|| εἰς τοῦτος. The τοῦτο refers, not to v. 2, (Brown,) nor to judgment or the 
account spoken of in v. 5, (Burton, Trollope ; who then translate εἰς with refer- 
ence to, ) but to what follows in the present verse, iva, (final ; not, as Rosenmiiller, 
Wakefield, Burton, Bloqmfield, Brown, etc. ecbatic,) κτλ. 

** The common construction of εὐηγγελίσϑη as here used impersonally is better 
than to supply ὁ Χριστός or 76 εὐαγγέλιον, (Grotius, Bengel, Pott, Hottinger.) 

Τί νεκροῖς. To introduce a copula in the present tense, (as the English version,) 


Lecture XXIV.—Chapter 4 :.1-6. 269 


indeed,* according to men in the fiesh, but should live} accord: 
ing to God in the spirit.’ 

Of this extremely difficult verse there has been perhaps a 
score of different interpretations. To attempt a detailed enu- 
meration of these would be found more distracting and weari- 
some, than profitable for you. It 15 a case in which many, 
after the best efforts to determine the exact meaning, have 
still confessed themselves to be at a loss. What I shall offer 
will be rather in the way of suggestion, than of a confident 
decision. 

The first point to be looked at is, Who are the dead, here 
spoken of, to whom the Gospel was preached ? 

And as to this I cannot but think that the connection, al- 
ready pointed out, between the 5th and 6th verses is sufficient 
of itself to exclude the idea of the spiritually dead being 
meant in the latter instance—the dead in trespasses and sins 
- —whether living before the incarnation, or since; a view, 
however, that has been taken by not a few both of the earlier 
and the later commentators.t 

Those, again, who find in ch. 3 : 19 a personal ministry of 
Christ in Hades, before or after His resurrection, naturally 
and generally ὃ refer to the same event this preaching of the 
Gospel to the dead—either restricting it to the disobedient of 
Noah’s time,|| or else extending it to all the dead.** But, as 
we could not adopt that explanation of the former passage, 
we, of course, can see no such reference in the one before us. 

Then there are some}ff who think the slanderers of the 
Christians are intended. These, though they may have died 
. before Christ returns, shall not thereby escape His righteous 
judgment ; nay, their condemnation will be the heavier, that 
to them also the Gospel was preached—preached with a gra- 
cious design—yet preached in vain. 


or in the preterit, (Benson and Newcome, ‘ weve dead in sins,’) is to give the par- 
ticular view of the translator an undue advantage. -: : 
* ἵνα κριϑῶσι μέν. Comp. ch. 3 : I8—p. 236, note jf. T (dot. 
t Augustine, Bede, Gerhard, Benson, Whitby, Doddridge, Macknight, Brown, 
etc. 
§ Bengel is an exception. || De Wette. 
** Huther, Alford, etc. tt Wiesinger cites Hofmann and Besser. 


270 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


Nearly all of these opinions, you perceive, proceed on a 
principle that is capable of still other applications ; the prin- 
ciple, namely, that by the dead here we are not required to 
understand absolutely all the dead who shall appear before 
Christ’s judgment-seat. Such an understanding, on the con- 
trary, is positively forbidden by the certain fact, that of those 
dead a vast proportion have never had the Gospel preached to 
them at all. Perhaps, even, a limitation of some sort is sug- 
gested by the omission in the original of the article before 
‘dead’—as if it were 20 dead persons, to some that are dead. 
So that the question is reduced to this: What particular class 
of the dead had the writer in his mind, when he says that 
‘to them also was the Gospel preached, that they might be judg- 
ed, indeed, according to men in the flesh, but should live accord- 
tng to God in the spirit’ ? 

Before inquiring, however, what other possible answer may 
be given to that question, it will be well to see what we are to 
make of that part of the verse, which states the purpose for 
which the Gospel was preached to some who had died before 
the Epistle was written. 

And here also various notions have been started, with which 
we need not at all concern ourselves. What I would have you 
notice particularly is the strongly marked opposition between 
being ‘judged according to men in the flesh’ and ‘ living accord- 
wg to God in the spirit. Onecan scarcely fail to be remind- 
ed of what was said of our Lord only a few verses back (ch. 
3: 18,) that He was ‘ put to death, indeed, in flesh, but quick- 
ened in spirit ;’ and the idea thus suggested for the explana- 
tion of the phrase before us is, I have no doubt, the true one. 
Not, certainly, as if the sufferings and death of men were any 
part of the purpose of God in sending them the Gospel ; any 
more than when Paul thanked God that the Romans had been 
the servants of sin, but had become obedient to the faith,* he 
meant that the former fact also entered into the ground of his 
thanksgiving. His language is equivalent to this: ‘God be 
thanked, that, though ye were the servants of sin, yet ye have 
obeyed, etc.” And so here: ‘For to this end was the Gospel 


* Rom. 6: 17. 


Lecture XXIV —Chapter 4 : 1-6. 27¥ 


preached also to the dead’ —some dead— that, though judged, in- 
deed, according to men’—that is, in a human way, or as all 
men are judged—‘zz the flesh, they should live according to 
God’—that is, in a Divine way—‘zu the spirit.’ 

‘It is appointed unto men once to die,’ and their death, even 
that of believers, is properly called a judgment in the flesh ; 
just as Paul, speaking of the chastisement, to death itself, in- 
flicted on the Corinthians for their abuse of the Lord’s Sup- 
per, calls that their being ‘judged.’* And our own Apostle, 
in the 17th verse of this chapter, regards the trials of the 
children of God in these last times as truly a judgment con- 
cerning them—the very beginning of the final judgment. In 
all cases alike ‘the body is dead because of sin,’ for ‘the wages 
of sin is death. Nor does the redemption of Christ annul 
that necessity of our present fallen, fleshly condition. But it 
inaugurates a higher life—a life spiritual and Divine—which 
shall be perfected in the resurrection ; and to this end is the 
Gospel preached in the world. 

Now, as I am disposed to believe, the anticipation in the 
fifth verse of the general judgment of ‘the Living and the 
dead’ \ed the writer to think, in passing, of those in the lat- 
ter throng to whom the Gospel had already been preached, 
and preached effectually for that very end, though their faith 
had not saved them from bodily death—in some instances, as 
those of Stephen and James, a violent and bloody death. But 
that Christians should die at all seems to have produced occa- 
sional perplexity and discouragement in the apostolic com- 
munion, glowing, as it was everywhere, with the hope of the 
Lord’s speedy return in glory. And now, at this advanced 
period of the apostolic age, when the fires of persecution were 
fast kindling around the Church, ¢ it was all-important that 
_ her members should be reassured, that the gracious design of 

the Gospel had in no wise been defeated in the case of those 
of their number who had already fallen asleep. They still 
‘lived unto God,’ and that life was continuous and indestruc- 
tible, and would be consummated at the appearance of the 
Judge—of Him who is the Life of all His people, living or 


Ἔτι Cor. 11 3130-3250) ΕΘ Laesse 4) 2-13, ete - § Ch. 1:6, 73 4.5, 12: 


272 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


dead,* as well as the Avenger of their wrongs. Such an as- 
surance also, it is evident, was in beautiful harmony with the 
entire drift of this section of the Epistle, and indeed of the 
Epistle throughout. 


Difficult as we have found some of these verses, the whole 
passage, you must be satisfied, is rich in the topics of Chris- 
tian doctrine, warning, and consolation. Most of these, how- 
ever, having been brought out distinctly in the course of the 
exposition, we need not now insist on them. 

1. Let it never be forgotten by Christians, not only that 
they are called to a truceless and exterminating warfare with 
sin—with ‘all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men’—at 
whatever sacrifice of fleshly interests, but that ‘the mind of 
Christ’ is the only armor that will avail in the hour of conflict. 

2. Then, think not to reconcile in any dexterous way acqui- 
escence in ‘the lusts of men’ with subjection to ‘the wll of 
God’+ Peter himself, I am sure, had not forgotten the terrible 
rebuke, in which ‘the things that be of God’ and ‘those that 
. be of men’ were set in opposition, the one to the other. 

3. Again, let us render due honor to the grace and truth 
which came by Jesus Christ, and, out of a world full of idols 
and of all iniquity, succeeded in immediately gathering around 
the cross ‘a peculiar people, zealous of good works.’ + 

4. The indirect operation of the same heavenly influences 
has since greatly changed the outward moral aspect of Chris- 
tendom at large ; and in that respect there may very often be 
to the unspiritual eye little or no difference between those 
who sincerely profess Christ, and those who do not profess 
Him at all. But, be assured, there is just as much need now 
as formerly of the Apostolic exhortation: ‘Be not conformed 
to this world ; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your 
mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, 
and perfect will of God’§ Have not those around us reason 
enough to ‘think strange, not that we differ so much, but that, 


* Luke:20 : 38; Col. 3:4. Note the present ζῶσι as opposed to the aorist 
"κριϑῶσι. 
7 Rom. 1: 18. 1 John r:17; Tit. 2: 14: § Rom, 12: 2. 


; Lecture XXIV.—Chapter 4 : 1-6. 278 
with such a faith and such a hope as ours, we differ so little, 
from them ? 

5. And finally, let the thought of the coming judgment— 
its certainty and its nearness—be much upon our mind. ‘For 
we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ.’ At 
that dread bar the enemies of Christ and of Christ’s people 
shall receive their ‘just recompense of reward ;’ all hypocri- 
sies shall be unveiled; and only the living ones—they who, 
amidst the temptations of earth and the weaknesses of the 
flesh, still sought with good and honest hearts to serve the 
Lord and their brethren—shall be crowned with ‘everlasting 
joy.’ * 


* Rom) TAF: τὸ; ΕΘ. 2 1 2. 15:.55: 10: 


LECTURE Lge 


ees 


LA ALIGIE DE ONG isi 


‘But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto 
prayer. And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity 
shall cover the multitude of sins. Use hospitality one to another without grudg- 
ing. As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to 
another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let 
him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the 
ability which God giveth : that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus 
Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.’ 


THE writer has been speaking at large of what concerned 
the position and duty of his brethren in the presence of, and 
in their relations to, an unholy and hostile world, (2: 11; 
4:6.) He may now be said to address himself more imme- 
diately to the regulation of their inner Church-life, though still 


with a constant eye to their afflictive outward circumstances. 


{1} 7: 1G) 


‘But the end of all things ts at hand’ *—the end, not mere- 
ly of your temptations and sorrows, but of the whole present 
economy of human affairs, yea, of ‘the heavens and the earth 
which are now.’ For the reference is not to the overthrow 
of Jerusalem, ¢ except as that might be supposed to involve, 
or to be involved in, the general catastrophe. Still less is 
Peter thinking of the death of individuals. No doubt, when 
a man dies, that is to him an end of all earthly interests ; and 
this truth is a serious and solemn one. But it is not the truth 


* ἤγγικε, ἐξ come near, (Luke 10 : 9, 11 ;) better than dvaweth near, (Luke 21 : 8.) 
1 2 1 397k + Hammond, Benson, etc. 


Lecture XX V—Chapter 4: 7-11. a7 


here expressed, nor can it be said that the consideration of 
individual mortality figures largely among the motives by 
which the New Testament enforces the duties of Christians. 

Prominent among those motives, however, is the anticipa- 
tion of the crisis, when Christ shall return to judgment. And 
everywhere that crisis is by the Apostles represented as near. 
It may even be admitted that, in their own private thoughts 
and surmises on the subject, they were inclined to hope that 
the consummation would arrive much sooner than God's pur- 
pose warranted them to expect. But what we are concerned 
with is their official teaching ; and their uniform language, in 
regard to the shortness of the time that should precede the 
Lord’s second coming, is then justified by the similar phrase- 
ology employed by the Lord Himself on that topic—by the 
Divine estimate of duration—by the fact that, as related to 
previous dispensations, this was the last time, the time of 
urgent preparation for final judgment—and, lastly, by a com- 
parison of the length of this additional term of gracious long- 
suffering, as that may be inferred from prophetic intimations, 
with the ages of the past, or with the glory that shall fol- 
low. 

‘The end he speaks of, says Calvin, ‘is not merely that of 
each several individual, but the entire renovation of the world : 
as if he said, that Christ will shortly come, and put an end to 
all things. It is not strange, therefore, if we are overwhelmed 
by worldly cares, and held in slumber, or if the sight of pre- 
sent things dazzles our eyes ; because we do all commonly pro- 
mise ourselves an eternity in this world; never at least does 
the end come into mind. Whereas, did the trump of Christ 
sound in our ears, it would keenly smite all our senses, nor 
suffer them to lie thus torpid. It might be objected, however, 
that a long series of ages has elapsed since Peter wrote this, 
and still the end is not yet seen. I answer, that to us the 
time seems long for ithis reason, that we measure its length 
by the spaces of the present life, but that, could we have re- 
spect to the perpetuity of the life to come, many generations 
would be for us as it werea moment, (2 Pet. 3 : 8.) Moreover, 
it must be held as a first principle, that, ever since the ap- 


276 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


pearing of Christ, there is nothing left to the faithful, but with 
wakeful minds to be always intent on His second advent.’ ἢ 

This blessed hope, accordingly, is made, as I have said, the 
frequent ground of apostolic appeal ; and sometimes, as here, 
the thought of its speedy realization is used as a motive to 
the cultivation of the very tempers and habits, to which it 
has been thought to be especially unfavorable. ‘Let your 
moderation,’ says Paul, ‘be known unto all men. The Lord 
is at hand. Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by 
prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests 
be made known unto God.’ And James: ‘Be ye also pa- 
tient ; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord is at 
hand.’ + In the same spirit is our text: ‘The end of all things 
15 αὐ hand: be ye therefore sober,and watch unto prayer ;’ or, 
‘be sound-minded, therefore’ t—adiscreet, prudent— and be sober, 
771 order to prayer. . 

The sound mind, that is here enjoined as peculiarly becom- 
ing those who ‘see the day approaching,’§ is,opposed to the 
manifold insanities and extravagances of the unrenewed na- 
ture; as when the poor Gadarene who had his dwelling 
among the tombs, redeemed at last from distraction and mad- 
ness, and the fury of hellish tormentors, was found sitting 
calm and thoughtful, in the peace of God, at the feet of his 


* ‘Quanquam non de privato tantum cujusque fine loquitur, sed de universa 
mundi reparatione : acsi diceret, venturum brevi Christum qui finem omnibus im- 
ponet. Non mirum igitur si nos obruant mundi cure, sopitosque teneant: si 
oculos perstringat praesentium rerum aspectus: quia omnes fere nobis zternita- 
tem in mundo promittimus: saltem nunquam finis venit in mentem. Quod si 
auribus nostris insonaret Christi tuba, sensus omnes nostros acriter percelleret, 
neque ita torpere pateretur. Czterum objici posset, longam ztatum seriem 
fluxisse ex quo hoc scripsit Petrus, necdum tamen finem conspici. Respondeo, 
nobis ideo longum videri tempus, quia longitudinem metimur caducz hujusce 
vite spatiis ; verum si in perpetuitatem futurze vitee respicere possemus, multa 
secula nobis instar momenti fore: quemadmodum et proxima epistola dicet. 
Preeterea tenendum est illud principium, ex quo semel apparuit Christus, nihil 
fidelibus relictum esse, nisi ut suspensis animis semper ad secundum ejus adven- 
tum intenti essent.’—Comp. pp. 62-5; also Lect. on Thess. pp. 74-7 and 260-2. 

t Phil. 4 : 5,6; James 5 : ὃ, (7yyexe.) 

t σωφρονήσατε οὖν. This verb, with its cognates, σώφρων, σωφροσύνη, etc., is 
scarcely susceptible of satisfactory translation. But the radical idea throughout 
is that suggested by the etymology, (σῶς, φρήν.) 

§ Heb. 10: 25. 


f 


Lecture XXV—Chapter 4 : 7-11. B77. 


Liberator.* It implies a discernment of the differences of 
things,t as of the comparative value of things present and 
things to come, and the choice of the more excellent. It 
may thus be said to include, in particular, the other duty pre- 
scribed, that of sodriety—the keeping of the mind and heart 
clear from the bewildering and benumbing fumes of worldly 
excess and dissipation of every kind. For, although very 
many retain the rendering, watch, yet, as one remarks, ‘the 
sort of watching spoken of is not the opposite of sleep, but 
of drunkenness ; 1 and in this sense is the word§ always, with 
one exception, translated elsewhere in our English version. 
Such, then, in the judgment of Apostles, is the mental dis- 
position that best comports with the belief, that ‘the end of 
all things is at hand,’ not a fanatical excitement and agita- 
tion, but a steady, intelligent, circumspect moderation in all 
things ; and that ‘72x order to prayer, or literally, ‘7 order to 
the prayers’ \|\—the prayers of the Church, and of the Chris- 
tian life generally. It is taken for granted that these abound 
in the closet of the believer, and wherever two or three are 
gathered together in the name of Christ ; nay, that they con- 
stitute the great practical interest, the promotion of which 
should of right control the regulation of the heart, no less 
than of our external affairs. In view, especially, of pre- 
sent trials and of the coming end of all things, see that ye 
‘continue, Peter seems to say, ‘instant in prayer.’** That 
will be your best refuge from the violence of the wicked— 
your dearest solace under the bitterness of reproach; and, 
when the Lord shall come, where would you rather be found 
of Him, than on your bended knees before the mercy-seat ? 
Be, therefore, sedulously on your guard against whatever 


* σωφρονέω is the word used both in Mark § : 15 and Luke ὃ : 35. 

+ τὸ δοκιμάζειν τὰ διαφέροντα, (Rom. 2 : 18; Phil. 1 : 10.) 

t Rev. William Dow; Sermons and Homilies. 

§ νήφω. See ch. 1:13; 5:8; 1 Thess. 5: 6,8. To these examples 2 Tim. 
4:5 might better have been conformed. And so νηφάλιος [-ἔος] is in our ver- 
sion always sober, (1 Tim. 3:2, 11; Tit. 2:2.) Comp. pp. 63-9.—Sin.’ omits 
καί before νήψατε. 

| εἰς τὰς προσευχάς. See Acts 2:42; 1 Tim.2:1; 5:5. Here the τάς is 
cancelled by Lachmann and Alford, after Sin, A, B, and several cursive MSS. 

** Rom, 12 : 12. 


’ 


278 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


would either interrupt the habit, or injure the spirit, of prayer. 
And, as nothing is more fatal to both than a mind disturbed 
and driven by folly, and destitute of the power of self-com- 
mand, or giddy with the intoxication of the flesh and of the 
world, ‘be sound-minded, therefore, and be sober, in order to 
prayer’—the prayers, whether of a secret, social, or public 
kind.* 


‘And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves ;’ 
which might otherwise be rendered thus : ‘Aut’ +—since there 
is no danger of excess in loving one another ; or, since.a man 
may easily strive after sober-mindedness, and neglect love {— 
‘but before§ all things have your love for one another intense. || 
That they would love one another is here again assumed ; 
what is enjoined is, that their love be vehement.** 

And this was to be regarded as of paramount importance. 
Not, certainly, as if, in comparison with this, they might 
safely neglect all other things, as, for instance, what he had 
just been saying about sobriety and prayer. But, as the other 
graces and exercises of the Christian life tend to the increase 
of love, so in the atmosphere of love they themselves must 
live and move and have their being. The writer, however, 
has an immediate eye to the mutual duties of church mem- 
bers ; and therefore he specifies brotherly love, not only as 
the essential element in the right performance of all these, 
but as itself exerting a direct and mighty influence in secur- 
ing the purity, peace, and prosperity of the household of faith : 
‘for love, says he, ‘shall cover’—hide, put out of sight, sup- 
press in darkness and oblivion—‘ a multitude of sins. 17 


* γήψατε being understood as above, there is no reason why εἰς τὰς προσ. should 
not be connected with both the preceding verbs. Tyndale’s version is: ‘Be ye 
therefore discreet and sober, that ye may be apt to prayers.’ Comp. p. 198. 

+ dé—cancelled by Alford, (Sin.) Comp. p. 224, note ἢ, 

1 Steiger. ὃ πρό. 

|| τὴν εἰς ἑαυτοὺς ἀγάπην ἐκτενῆ (comp. ἐκτενῶς, p. 165) ἔχοντες. Vs. 8-11 may 
be regarded as grammatically dependent on v. 7. Comp. p. 160, note *. 

** Bengel: ‘Amor jam przsupponitur: ut sit vehemens, precipitur.’? The 
above construction is adopted also by Hensler, Greenfield, Bloomfield, Peile, De 
Wette, Huther, Wiesinger, Alford. 

tt πλῆϑος ἁμαρτιῶν----ἃ5 James 5 : 20.—Sin omits 7 before ἀγάπη. 


Lecture XX V—Chapter 4: 7-11. 279 


But whose sins? the sins of him who loves, or of him who 
is loved? 

Of the former, say most Roman Catholic divines, in their 
zeal to establish the doctrine of human merit ; and also not a 
few Protestant interpreters, on the principle recognized even in 
the Lord’s Prayer, that God’s forgiveness of our trespasses is 
according to our forgiveness of those who trespass against 
us. As ‘he shall have judgment without mercy that hath 
showed no mercy,’ so to a life of active beneficence to the 
disciples of Christ, as such, is pledged by the Judge Himself 
the blessedness of the future and everlasting kingdom.* 

Others have supposed, that the many sins which love shall 
cover are those of the party beloved, and led by love to re- 
pentance, and so within the circle of God’s covenanted mercy. 
This is, indeed, plainly the meaning of the phrase as used by 
James, (5 : 19, 20:) ‘Brethren, if any of you do err from the 
truth, and one convert him ; let him know, that he which con- 
verteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul 
from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.’ But our pre- 
sent passage differs from that, in that Peter seems to be think- 
ing of the operation of love, not so much in the conversion 
of sinners, as in the mutual intercourse of believers. 

Both writers, however, borrowed the expression, though in 
a modified form, and, it may be, with varied applications of it, 
from Prov. 10:12: ‘Hatred stirreth up strifes: but love 
covereth all sins.’ Instead of finding its pleasure in search- 
ing out, and exposing to view, every fault and infirmity of a 
brother, its tendency and habit rather is, so far as its obliga- 
tions in other relations, and the good of the offender himself, 
will allow, to avert its own eyes from every thing of the sort, 
and conceal it from the notice of others. Least of all does it 
retain any implacable: grudges, but forgives ‘until seventy 
times seven.’ ᾧ Now, very many§ believe that this is just 
what is meant also in the verse before us. In the present 
state of imperfection it must needs be that offences come 


* Matt. 6:14; 18:35; 25: 34-40; Mark 11:25; 2 Tim. 1: 16-18; James 
2 12) GE 

+ Lev. 19 : 17; Matt. 18 : 15-17, etc. t Matt. 18 : 22. 

§ As Luther, Calvin, Steiger, Wiesinger, etc. 


280 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


even within the bosom of the Church; and, if the spirit of 
love be faint and ready to die, every such occasion will be- 
come a root of bitterness, which springing up will trouble and 
‘defile many.* Love, on the contrary, ‘bearing all things, 
believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things, 
quenches each fiery spark as it falls, before it kindles into a 
conflagration. Or we may call it the healing power of the 
Body of Christ. 

This view, it deserves to be remarked, is favored by the 
substitution, which is made by some of the best authorities, 
of the present tense for the future: for love covers a multitude 
of sins; it does so now—it is its business and delight to do 
so. Our translators may even have intended to suggest it 
in connection with the common reading, when they entered 
on the margin the unusual variation of wel for shall: for 
love will cover a multitude of sins ; that is its natural bent— 
it will be always doing so. If, however, the future tense be 
retained, I should be inclined to think, that, while what has 
just been mentioned gives the real form of the original pas- 
sage in Proverbs, this Old Testament saying, like so many 
others, acquires in the New an analogous, but deeper, signi- 
ficance. Our Apostle might then be thought, like James, to 
have had the clear and earnest eye of his primitive faith 
turned to the process and issues of the impending judgment, 
(vs. 5, 7, 17,) when it would be found that the spirit and labors 
and sacrifices of love had been mainly instrumental in the 
edification of the Church, ¢ as well as in securing for itself 
the rewards of grace. Taken in this light, the words, shall 
cover a multitude of sins, are not simply an announcement of 
a yet future event, but an authoritative pledge on the part of 
God. 

The next two verses point out certain forms, in which the 
mutual love of the brethren was to evince both its existence 
and its intensity. 


* Heb. 12: 15. 

+ καλύπτει (A, B, J, cursive MSS., Syriac, Vulgate, etc.) is marked by Gries- 
bach as of great value, and adopted by Wells, Knapp, Meyer, Steiger, Lachmann, 
Tischendorf, Huther, Wiesinger, Alford. 

¥ Gal5 :13; 6:1; Eph. 4: 15, 16, etc. 


Lecture XX V.—Chapter 4: 7-11. 281 


‘Be hospitable to one another* without murmurings. It is 
interesting to note the frequency with which stress is laid in 
the New, Testament on this duty of hospitality. A principal 
reason of this, no doubt, was the peculiar adversity of the 
times, when it often happened that, the old bonds of family 
and society being sundered, or a general persecution arising 
because of the word, private Christians found themselves, 
like their leaders, without any ‘certain dwelling-place—liter- 
ally, and in every sense, ‘scattered sojourners.’ | Even when 
their business occasions merely took them temporarily from 
home, they must have shrunk from the contamination of the 
heathen inns along the road, as much as from the insult and 
outrage they might meet with there. Hence an important 
qualification of the primitive bishop or overseer, as of other 
church officers, was, that he should be ‘a lover of hospitality’ £ 
—ready, for Christ’s sake, to receive and shelter and comfort 
the friendless wanderers. But the obligation was not confined 
to those in office. To ‘distribute to the necessity of saints’ 
—to be ‘given to hospitality’—is enjoined as the common 
duty of all—a duty resulting immediately from their Christian 
brotherhood. ‘Let brotherly love continue,’ says the writer 
to the Hebrews; and then: ‘Be not forgetful to entertain ἡ 
strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels un- 
awares. Nay, Christ had given His followers to understand, 
‘ that sometimes He Himself, in the person of a disciple, 
would appear in their streets, and stand at their doors, ‘a 
stranger, as in the days of His flesh, ‘having not where to 
lay His head.’ Would it not be their privilege, even far 
more than it would be their duty, to ‘take Him in’ ?§ 

Do this, then, ‘ wthout murmurings.|| Grudge not, make 
no complaint of the trouble or expense. What have you, 


* φιλόξενοι εἰς ἀλλήλους, I should supply ὄντες. See p. 278, note ||. 

ety Cor. 4 hs Reka test 

i 32 Dbrhoos 7 CASTS Boor) SIDES STR Ὁ; 

§ Rom. 12': 135, Hebo13.: 5) 2" Matt. ὁ.: 20; 25 335. 

|| γογγυσμῶν. The reading γογγυσμοῦ (murmuring; Sin. A, B, cursive MSS., 
Syriac, Vulgate, etc.) is favored by Griesbach and Bloomfield, and adopted by 
Wells, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Huther, Wiesinger, Alford.. The word is ren- 
dered as above by our English versions at Phil. 2 : 14 and elsewhere. And simi- 
larly the cognates, γογγύζω and γογγυστής. 


282 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


that you have not received? And is it not one main end for 
which it is given to you, that you may be helpful to your 
brethren? Remember also that for every cup of cold water, 
given to a disciple in the name of a disciple, there is a great 
reward.* 


Another way in which ‘brotherly love was to be shown, 
was in the use of those spiritual gifts with which believers 
in that age were ordinarily endowed at the time of their 
baptism, or through the subsequent laying on of Apostles’ 
hands.} 

‘ According as each’ then ‘received, not the gift, but ‘a gift’ 
—for ‘there are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit’ 
(1 Cor. 12 : 4)—‘*znester the same to one another’ t—use, 
that is, every man his own particular gift for the common be- 
nefit—‘ as good stewards of the mantfold grace of God, and as 
having therefore gifts differing according to the grace given. § 

This must not be restricted to the exercise of official gifts. 
The writer is addressing the whole body of the faithful, and 
he supposes that each one had a gift of some kind or other. 
The rule applies even to natural endowments, which are, 
indeed, the gifts of God at the first, and become doubly His 
gifts, when quickened and sanctified by the breath of the 
new life. Whatever, in fact, a man has of faculty for doing 
good, and edifying the Church, that may properly be called 
his gift ; though in apostolic phraseology the name especially 
designates the extraordinary influences of the Holy Spirit, in 
which also the baptized generally shared. 

Now, the consideration that Peter here urges is, that all 
these gifts of every kind were bestowed, not for the honor 


* Matt. 10: 42. 

+ The latter seems to have been the regular medium for the communication of 
the pentecostal gifts, (Acts 2:28; 8: 18-20; 19: 5,6; Eph. 1:13; 1 Tim. 
4:14, comp. 2 Tim. 1:6.) The recorded exceptions are the original effusion of 
the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, (Acts 2 : 3, 4,) and what took place in 
like manner at the first calling of the Gentiles into the Church, (Acts 10 : 44-46, 
comp. II : 15, 17,) and in the case of the Apostle of the Gentiles, (Acts 9 : 17.) 

ἕκαστος καϑὼς ἔλαβε (comp. Revision of 1 Yorn 2:27, notes q and w) 
χάρισμα, εἰς ἑαυτοὺς αὐτὸ διακονοῦντες. For the construction, see p. 278, note ||. 

§ Rom. 12: 6. 


Lecture XX V-—Chapier 4: 7-11. 283 


and gratification and. separate profiting of the individual, but 
for the blessing of all, and must therefore be used for that 
end, instead of being either rendered unfruitful through 
neglect, or perverted to the purposes of a selfish ostentation. 
‘ Of the manifold grace of God, as displayed in this variety of 
gifts—‘ grace, one in its source and in its design, but, like the 
Divine wisdom, ‘ #anzfold, variegated, many-colored (so the 
word* is) in its modes of self-manifestation—of this grace the 
believers were not merely the objects and the depositaries, 
but ‘stewards.’ Themselves nourished at the table of the 
great Householder, they were also in a measure made 
mutually dependent. Every, man had his appropriate and 
appointed place of serving God, while at the same time 
serving his brethren, and had likewise his special gift for his 
special work. They were not to encroach on each other's. 
spheres, nor covet or affect each other’s gifts;7 but, ‘ac~ 
cording as cach received a gift, minister the same to one an- 
other, as good’—kind, bountiful, faithful —‘ stewards of the 
mantfold grace of God. Only thus could ‘the whole body,’ to 
use Paul's noble figure, ‘ fitly joined together and compacted 
by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual 
working in the measure of every part, make increase of the 
body unto the edifying of itself in love.’ ἢ 


And now, lastly, the reference just made to the common 
relation, which all sustained to God, leads the writer to ad- 
monish his brethren, that, if they would attain these ends of 
love in their mutual service, they must maintain a constant 
sense of absolute dependence on God, and accountability to 
Him, in the exercise of their various gifts. 

‘Tf any one speaketh’—whether in the way of prophesying, 
or teaching, or exhorting; whether his be the word of wis- 
dom or of knowledge ; whether speaking with tongues, or the 
interpretation of tongues §—‘let it be as the oracles of God, || 


* rotkiioc—in Eph. 3 : 10, πολυποίκιλος. 

+ Bengel : ‘ αὐτὸ, zd zpswm—non affectato 8110." i Spoils il Bln) 

§ Comp. Rom. 12 : 6-8 and 1 Cor. 12 : 8, 10. 

| εἴ τις λαλεῖ, ὡς λόγια Θεοῦ. Almost all expositors, down to Huther, supply 
λαλείτω [ἃ λαλεῖ]... διακονείτω. But the analogy of v. 10 would suggest rather 
a continuance of the participial construction. 


284 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


that is, as one speaking the oracles of God ;* with the hu- 
mility, fidelity, and reverence, becoming the man who is 
called to handle the Divine word, or through whom God even 
more directly utters His messages to His children. Let him 
beware of giving God’s oracles as if they were his own, 
or of adulterating them with what is his own. And let even 
his outward manner in conveying them to others express his 
own sense of their-solemnity and importance. 

And “77 any one ministereth, performs any other kind of 
service in the Church, whether in the way of giving, or ruling, 
or showing mercy; whether his province be that of miracles, 
or gifts of healing, or helps, or governments -—‘let it be as 
of the ability which God supplieth, $ that is, in the full and 
declared consciousness, that of himself he can do nothing ef- 
fectual in work so holy, and that, if he is indeed able in any 
wise to promote the Church’s well-being, his sufficiency is of 
God. Let him remember that he is but a minister—a servant 
of God and his brethren—and that, as his right to serve, so 
also his power is given him from above. 

‘That in all; it is then beautifully added—‘ zz all’ of you, 
as His true instruments, § or, as it is more commonly and 
better understood, ‘27 a//’ these gifts and offices of loving 
helpfulness—‘ God, to whom the whole Church belongs, who 
has organized her, and furnished her with ministries and 
ordinances, according to His own will, and whose grace 
alone, stirring in all her members, qualifies them to benefit 
and bless each other—‘that in all God may be glorified through 
SYesus Christ. || The glory of God, or the shining forth of 
His nature and attributes, is necessarily His own chief end in 
all His works of creation and providence. It is so especially in 
the wondrous constitution of the Church, and must therefore 
be her chief end also in all the service that she renders to 


* Erroneously Barnes: ‘As the oracles of God speak.’ In both clauses ὡς 
marks the subjective feeling of the speaker and the minister. 

+ Comp. Rome 12: 8 and 1 Cor. 12: 28. © 

t εἴ τις διακονεῖ, ὡς ἐξ ἰσχύος ἧς χορηγεῖ ὁ Θέος. See p. 283, note ||. 

§ So De Wette. Calvin also allows this. Quite wrong is Rosenmiiller: ‘fer 
omnes homines, qui nempe vestros actus vident :’ “ἦγ all men, to wit, spectators.’ 

|| twa ἐν πᾶσι κτλ. 


Lecture XX V.—Chapter 4: 7-1. 285 


His name. And as God's love to her flows ever in the chan- 
nel of Christ’s mediation, and Christ’s presence with her by 
His word and Spirit is the sole cause of her life and activity, 
so likewise it is ‘through Fesus Christ’ that her answering 
tribute of praise reaches the eternal throne.* 

Brought thus face to face with the grand final issue, the 
Apostle pauses, and, as if he overheard the never-ceasing dox- 
ology of the new creation, he looks up, and adds his fer- 
vent Amen: ‘Zo whom, that is, to God, rather than, as 
somey explain, to Jesus Christ—‘ 70 whom’—not be praise, 
but, in sure fulfilment of the very purpose just mentioned— 
‘is the glory, the glory of redemption—‘and the power,. by 
which it is effected. Both belong to God, and to Him they 
are ascribed in the songs of the Church ‘for ever and ever, 
or, according to the old Hebrew formula of the original, unto 
the ages of the ages.t ‘ Amen, 


* Comp. pp. 112-12. + Grotius, Steiger, etc. 
t © ἐστιν ἡ δόξα καὶ τὸ κράτος εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων. Comp. Matt. 6 : 13, 
and the Reviscon of Rev. 1 : 6. 


LECTURE XAT, 


1 PETER 4: 12-19. 


‘BELOVED, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you,’ 
as though some strange thing happened unto you: but rejoice, inasmuch as ye 
are partakers of Christ’s sufferings ; that, when His glory shall be revealed; ye 
may be glad also with exceeding joy. If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, 
happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part 
He is evil spoken of, but on your part He is glorified. But let none of you suffer 
as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evil-doer, or as a busybody in other men’s” 
matters. Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed ; but let 
him glorify God on this behalf. For the time is come that judgment must begin 
at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them 
that obey not the Gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where 
shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? Wherefore let them that suffer accord- 
ing to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to Him in well doing, as 
unto a faithful Creator.’ 


THE 11th verse had closed with a doxology ; and it is not 
till the beginning of the next chapter that the writer returns 
to the work of instructing his brethren, in view of the ap- 
proaching end of all things, as to their mutual obligations as 
members of the Church. Meanwhile, taking advantage of 
the solemn pause in the discourse, but bearing distinctly in 
mind the same great crisis, he pours forth still another strain 
of tender, earnest admonition and consolation in regard to 
the sorrows and perils by which they were beset. If there is 
repetition here, it is like that of maternal love, when soothing 
the pains, and wiping away the tears, of children. We shall 
find, however, that the sources of strength and comfort for 
the suffering saints, that are now to be opened, are deeper 
and more various than had yet been adverted to. . 


From the language of our version you might easily suppose 


Lecture XX VI.—Chapter 4 : 12-109. 27 


that ‘che fiery trial’ was not then thought of as something 
actually present, but apprehended merely as near at hand; 
though it may be that our translators intended by the phrase, 
‘cohich is to try you, to express, not the certain futurity of the 
trial,* but its special character and design.t The latter, at 
all events, is what Peter meant. His words, closely rendered, 
are: ‘ Beloved, think not strange of the burning among you’— 
(part of that great conflagration which Christ came to kindle 
in the earth t)—‘ occurring to you for a trial, as of a strange 
thing were happening unto you. § Indeed, the whole Epistle 
shows, by its ever-recurring refrain of condolence, that the 
trial had at least already begun. 

And the temptation was not slight to ‘think strange’ of it. 
Here were the children of God left apparently defenceless to 
the rage of His enemies and theirs; the loyal adherents of 
the Saviour, whose blood had flowed for their ransom, and to 
whom now belonged all power in heaven and on earth, sub- 
jected still to the same sort of injurious treatment to which 
He Himself had voluntarily submitted, while yet a Man of 
sorrows. Long enough surely had it been the lot of the 
righteous, during the morning twilight of the kingdom of 
God, to be ‘destitute, afflicted, tormented.’ || Must that con- 
tinue to be their lot, after the redemption had been accom- 
plished, and while the Sun of righteousness was shining on 
high? Or, if the ‘called and chosen and faithful’ are not to 
be exempted in this present life from the common ills of hu- 
manity, why must they be plagued more than other men, and 
to all ordinary judgment be ‘of all men most miserable’? ** 
Might not this be reckoned truly ‘a strange ¢hzng’ ?—-some- 
thing that was ‘happening, if not against the will of their 


* Barnes: ‘which was then impending ;’ Brown: ‘wich is coming.’ 

+ So the older English versions. Tyndale and the Geneva: ‘which now is 
come among you to try [prove] you;”’ Cranmer and the Bishops’: ‘ which thing 
is to try you.’ 

fe luke s12)% 49; 

§ ᾿Αγαπητοὶ, μὴ ξενίζεσϑε (p. 582, note 1) τῇ ἐν ὑμῖν πυρώσει (Rev. 18 : 9, 18— 
the only other instances) πρὸς πειρασμὸν ὑμῖν γινομένῃ, ὡς ξένου ὑμῖν συωθαΐ- 
νοντος. 

ΓΈΡΟΣ 1132}. 
7X Revs 17 s:14.5 Ξε 73.252 Ὁ Corts, 3 19. 


288 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


sovereign Lord, yet, so to speak, fortuitously,* and without 
His notice? And shall they not venture, from the depth of 
their sorrow and danger, to send the chiding appeal even to 
the right hand of God: ‘Master, carest Thou not that we 
perish ?’ 7 

Let us see how the Apostle deals with the difficulty. 


1. He first affectionately counsels them to dismiss all such 
doubts and misgivings, since what they were enduring, or 
might yet have to endure, came not at all by chance, but by 
a Divine appointment, and for a gracious end—not for their 
destruction, but, as was formerly (ch. 1: 7) explained, ‘for 
trial, the trial of their faith.¢ The fires of suffering were to 
test and demonstrate the genuineness of their Christian cha- 
racter, and at the same time to refine and strengthen it. This 
one assurance might well reconcile them to the severity of 
the dispensation. 


2. But a feeling of bare acquiescence and resignation was 
not all that might fairly be expected of them. In suffering 
for Christ, they suffered with Him—‘ shared in the sufferings 
of Christ’§ Himself. Excepting in so far as they were not 
called to drink the bitterness of the curse, and to encounter 
the sting of death and the power of God, their sufferings were 
the same in kind as His—whatever the world’s scorn and 
violence could inflict. Like His, also, they had their origin 
in the world’s hatred both of the truth to which the friends 
of Christ bore witness, and of their holiness of character and 
life. On these accounts, as well as on the strength of the 
vital bond existing between the Head and the members, they 
were entitled to feel that they were one with the suffering 
Saviour, even as He too resented their sufferings as the con- 
tinuation of His own.|| 


* Bengel: ‘temere.’ t Mark 4 : 38. 

+ Bengel : ‘nonnisi ad fentationem . . . consilio divino.’ 

ὃ κοινωνεῖτε τοῖς τοῦ Χριστοῦ παϑήμασι. 

| Acts 9:4, 5; 2Cor.1:5; 4:10; Phil. 3: τὸ; Col. 1:24 (not merely, 
as Wahl, Robinson, s. v. ὑστέρημα, and others, affictions for Christ ;) Heb. 13 : 13. 
Comp. pp. 260-2. 


Lecture XX VI.—Chapter 4 : 12-19. 289 


Now, if the courtiers of earthly monarchs have sometimes 
been forward to follow them into exile and poverty, who 
would not aspire to be the companion and the sharer of the 
sorrows of the Son of God? Shall any that know Him, who 
He is, and what He is to us, shrink even from the summons, 
' ‘Let us also go, that we may die with Him’?* Nay, says 
Peter, ‘rejoice ;’ and that not merely decause ‘ye share in the 
sufferings of Christ, but ‘according as’ ye so share.t Let 
the measure of your sufferings be the measure of your joy. 


3. It would then, he goes on to intimate in the next place, 
be the measure also of their reward. That reward was to be 
the crown, not so much of their sufferings, as of the patience 
and joy of faith with which the sufferings were borne. ‘ Azz, 
according as ye share in the sufferings of Christ, rejoice; that 
at the revelation also of His glory ye may rejoice, exulting. ἢ 
Every thing in Christ and His history—His humiliation and 
His glory alike—goés to swell the joy of His people. And 
between their joy, while partaking of the humiliation, and 
their share of the future glory, there is a connection of the 
closest kind, the former being not merely a foretaste of, but a 
preparation for, the latter. ‘By joy and desire,’ says Bengel 
—or, as he might have said, by suffering and joy—‘ we attain 
to joy and exultation.’§ If now there is joy in suffering—in 
being crucified with Christ—how great shall be the joy of 
being glorified together! Now, being in heaviness through 
manifold temptations, (ch. τ΄: 6,) His followers rejoice, weep- 
ing; then, freed for ever from sin, and sorrow, and care, they 
shall ‘vejozce, exulting’ There will be no abatement and no 
weariness in the rapture of eternity. 


4. But again looking merely at their present condition, in 


* John 11 : 16. 

ἱ καϑό [Beza and the Elzevir, ka3dc]—found also in Rom. ὃ : 26 and 2 Cor. 
fyi TEE 

t ἵνα καὶ ἐν τῇ ἀποκαλύψει (as at ch. 1: 7. Comp. Lectures on Thessalonians, 
Pp. 437) τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ χαρῆτε ἀγαλλιώμενοι, (see p. 32, note *.) 

§ ‘Gaudio desiderioque assequimur gaudium et exultationem. Conf. iva ut 
Joh. 8, 56. Spectatur premium patientie let.’ John 8 : 56, however, is not 
parallel. But the ἵνα of our text is not ecbatic, (Gerhard, Pott, Hensler, etc.) 


290 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


which, as we have already seen,* calumnious reproach formed 
as yet a principal instrument of their trial, Peter’s anointed 
eye discerns even there a gleam of that coming glory, and 
once more he pronounces them blessed. ‘/f ye are’—as I 
know ye are—‘ reproached for the name of Christ’—as confess- 
ing, and yourselves bearing, that worthy name—‘ dlessed are 
γα; ἡ for’—all other considerations apart—‘ the Spirit of glory’ 
—or, as some read, of glory and powert—‘ even the Spirit of 
God, resteth upon you. ὃ 

‘The Spirit of God’ may be called ‘the Spirit of glory, 
for the same reason that God Himself is ‘the Father of 
glory, and our Saviour Jesus Christ is ‘the Lord of glory’— 
to wit, as being possessed of Divine excellence.|| But there 
is here a special propriety in the use of the phrase to desig- 
nate the glorious Person, by whom, in contrast with the 
present outward humiliation of the Church, she is sealed 
unto the day of redemption—who is Himself the first fruit of 
her inheritance—and whose: gracious office it is to form her 
in meekness for that inheritance, by fashioning her after the 





* Comp. pp. 132-3, and 226, note f. 

Tt εἰ ὀνειδίζεσϑε (comp. p. 165, note ¢)... μακάριοι, (comp. 222, note }).—év 
before ὀνόματι is omitted by Sin.? 

t+ The words καὶ δυνάμεως being added after δόξης by Pott, Hensler, Scholz, 
Steiger, Lachmann, on the authority of A, B, several cursive MSS., Vulgate, etc. 
Griesbach has been named (by Jachmann, De Wette, and Brown) as favoring 
this reading ; but he dropped it in his second edition. The addition in Sin.?is: 
καὶ τῆς δυνάμεως αὐτοῦ. 

§ τὸ τῆς δόξης καὶ τὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ Πνεῦμα have been variously construed. 1. The 
words τὸ τῆς δόξης are taken by themselves, as=7 δόξα, by the Clementine Vul- 
gate, Tertullian, (.Scorf. 12,) Erasmus, Vatablus, Cranmer, Hammond, (‘the state 
of glory,) and latterly by Huther. But this, while it looks like a shift to evade 
the grammatical difficulty of the double τό, also yields an unsuitable sense. The 
suffering believer, even though he receive a larger measure of the Spirit, is not 
yet glorified. For τὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ Πνεῦμα can scarcely be considered exegetical of 
τὸ τῆς δόξης (Huther) thus understood. 2. Bengel thinks there may be here a 
hendiadys: glory and God=God of glory; or else that ἡ δόξα is used as a desig- 
nation of Christ. But there is little likelihood in either of these suggestions, 
though the latter is imitated by Augusti, (who would supply Κυρίου after δόξης : 
Eures glorreichen Herrn,) and apparently adopted by Meyer, (des Glorwiirdigen.) 
3. The construction followed above, which makes καὶ τὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ exegetical of τὸ 
τῆς δόξης Πνεῦμα, is that most generally approved. 

|| Eph. 1:17; 1 Cor,2:8. Comp. Ps. 24:7; Acts 7:2; James 2: I, etc. 


Lecture XX VI—Chapter 4 : 12-19. 291 


likeness of her Lord’s glory.* He, to whom is committed 
so great a work, can indeed be none other, as the Apostle 
teaches us, than ‘ Zhe Spirit of God’ And, as He ever de- 
lights in bearing witness to Christ in the souls of men, so 
when a soul, strengthened by His might, welcomes, for 
Christ’s sake, the hostility and reproaches of this world, there 
‘the Spirit of glory, even the Spirit of God, especially loves to 
take up His abode. Resisted and repelled by the multitude 
of the unbelievers, and but languidly recognized, if at all, by 
the formal and careless professor, He finds at last His most 
cherished rest in the humble martyrs of truth and righteous- 
ness. Over them He lovingly broods, as when, in fulfilment 
of ancient prophecy, the Heavenly Dove ‘descended and re- 
mained’ on the newly-baptized Redeemer.f And so each 
feeble, suffering saint becomes a Shechinah of the Divine 
presence. 

The rest of the r4th verse, ‘ Ox their part, indeed,{ He is 
evil Spoken of ’—or blasphemed 8—‘but on your part He is 
elorified, is not found in some of the oldest authorities, and 
is, accordingly, omitted by some of the modern editors of the 
Greek Testament.|| Were we to judge, however, merely by 
the internal evidence, there need be no doubt at all about the 
genuineness of the clause. Taking it as we find it, I under- 
stand it as referring, not, as some explain, to Christ,** or the 
name of Christ,t} but to ‘the Spirit of glory and of God, and 
as, in fact, vindicating against a possible objection what had 


PMN OMMs Ὁ.2 22» 2 ΟΌΙ 1522: ΕΣ Eph. 1: 133 4:30; Phil. 7:21; Col. 
1:12: 

¢ John 1:33. Comp. Is. 11:2, where the Septuagint has the same verb, 
ἀναπαύομαι. τὴς 

t μέν. Comp. pp. 238 and 269. 

§ βλασφημεῖται. 

|| It is thought by Mill to have been a gloss—is marked as doubtful by Steiger 
—and rejected by Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford, on the authority of Sin. A, B, 
many cursive MSS., the Syriac and Vulgate versions, (but not the Codex Amiatz- 
nus, ) Tertullian, etc. 

** So Diodati, Whitby, Wells, Bengel, Macknight. 

{t¢ So Burton and Jachmann—regarding the previous clause, ὅτι---ἀναπαύεται, as 
parenthetical.—Most objectionable of all is the construction by Piscator and 
Brown of both verbs, βλασφημεῖται and δοξάζεται, as used impersonally. Brown: 
‘with regard to them there is reproach, but with regard to you there is glory.’ 


202 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


just been asserted respecting the intimacy of the relation which 
so great a Being sustained to the calumniated Church. As if 
it were said: True, your enemies are all unconscious, at least 
they stand in no awe, of His presence ; as when the blinded 
Sodomites ‘wearied themselves to find the door,’ behind 
which stood the angelic terror ; or as when Pharaoh and his 
host, regardless, in their hot pursuit of their redeemed bond- 
men, of the protecting cloud in which dwelt Israel’s God, 
rushed on the ruin prepared for them; or as when the princes 
of this world crucified, without knowing, the Lord of glory ; 
or as the mockers on the day of Pentecost ascribed to new 
wine the inspirations of this same Spirit.* Just such a mad- 
ness is it, that now possesses your slanderers. The very 
thing that they hate in you is the fruit of the Spirit’s opera- 
tions ; and thus the reproaches wherewith they reproach you 
fall on Him. ‘On their part, indeed’—so far as they are 
concerned— He zs blasphemed, but’—what of that? It is 
none the less true that—‘on your part He ts glorified’— 
glorified by your adoring recognition of Him as your Divine 
Comforter and Guide—by your faithful testimony to the 
truth He has taught you—by your steady growth in all that 
is good—by your patience under insult and wrong. 

And this suggests a renewal of the caution which had been 
repeatedly given before.t They must be ever careful that 
the reproaches of their heathen neighbors were not provoked Ὁ 
by their own misdoings. All that had been said of the 
blessedness of suffering, of their partnership with Christ in 
suffering and in glory, and of the’ present compensations of 
the Spirit, was conditioned on their life being such as became 
the Gospel they professed. I speak, says Peter, of reproaches 
for the name of Christ, and in the bearing of which the pre- 
siding, overshadowing spirit of the Church is glorified ; ‘for’ £ 
—not but—‘ let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or 





ἈΠ ΘΕ ΤΟ" Τα Ὁ Εν τ τις, οἷο, α Cor. 2: Sis Acts erage 

ΠΥΒΕΘΊΘΙΝΣ £12,715, 16, 19, 201; 2: Τἱἱ 16, 7178 

t γάρ. The adversative interpretation, which comes from the Vulgate autem, 
(the Amiatine, however, has evi, ) is quite arbitrary ; and equally so is the sense 
modo, nur, only, (Syriac, Augusti, Jaspir,) or ¢herefore, (Grotius, Benson’s note, 
Macknight, Rosenmiiller.) See p. 382, note f. 


Lecture XX VI_—Chapter 4 : 12-109. 293 


an evil-doer, in any other like flagrant sense, ‘or as’—even 
as; theas being here at last repeated to mark a distinct class 
of offences,* and one into which they were more liable to fall 
than into those open outrages on even human law—‘ a busy- 
body in other men’s matters. 

The whole of this phrase stands for a single Greek word,} 
that occurs nowhere else, and which, according to its ety- 
mology, denotes one who undertakes to oversee what belongs 
to others—‘as it were, plays the bishop in another’s diocese.’ ἢ 
Hence it is sometimes explained as meaning one who usurps 
official authority over others.§ But our translators, following 
the older English versions, did well to avoid this unnecessary 
restriction. Peter’s word, which might be rendered generally 
an intermeddler, would include all that Paul intended when 
he censured the ‘busybodies’ of Thessalonica, and exhorted 
all to ‘study to be quiet, and to do their own business.’ |] The 
nature of the present context, however, makes it probable 
that our Apostle wished especially to save his brethren from 
the trouble that might come to them from any indiscreet, 
over-zealous interference with heathen manners and cus- 
toms.** 

‘ But tf as a Christian’ ++—Peter hastens to reiterate—that 
is, if any man suffers for merely bearing that name of most 
honorable distinction that came to us from Antioch, or for 
aught that really belongs to the Christian calling—‘ /et him 
not be ashamed, but’—so far from that—‘ let him glorify God 
on this behalf, or tn this particular,tt or,as some read, zz this 
nameS§ Let him account it to be, what it truly is, a badge 


* Bengel, Huther, Wiesinger. 

+ ἀλλοτριοεπίσκοπος (Lachmann, after Sin. B, ἀλλοτριεπίσκοπος. See Suicer, 
Thes. s.v.) is here neglected by the Syriac. Augusti’s definition, disturber of the 
public peace (Meyer Unruhstifter ) has but a remote connection with the etymolo- 
gy. And the same objection lies against the Vulgate alienorum apfpetitor, coveter 
of what belongs to others, (the sense also of Calvin, Castalio, Beza, Estius, Hor- 
neius. ) ; 

t Howe, Leigh. Diodati: facendo’l Vescovo sopra gli stranieri. 

§ Luther, (der 771 ein fremdes Amt greifet,) Hammond, Clericus, Lardner, Ben- 
son, etc. 

|| 1 Thess. 4: 11; 2 Thess. 3:11. *k De Wette. 

tt εἰ δὲ ὡς Χριστιανός, (Sin. Xpyor—.) tt ἐν τῷ μέρει τούτῳ. 
§§ The reading, ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι τούτῳ, (Sin. A, B, some cursive MSS., Syriac, 


204 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


of renown—something for which he may well be, not proud, 
indeed, but thankful, that to him it has been given, not only 
to believe on Christ, but also to suffer ‘for His sake.’ Let 
him exemplify the magnanimity of Moses, who ‘esteemed the 
reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt.’ 
Let him feel as we, the Apostles, felt, when we ‘departed 
from the presence of the council, rejoicing that we were 
counted worthy to suffer shame for the name.’ * 

Having thus again warned his readers against incurring 
suffering as the natural and just reward of their own wrong- 
doing, and having again exhorted them to the patient and 
even thankful endurance of such as might befal them on 
account of their Christian profession, he proceeds in the next 
two verses to state certain other considerations that might 
well confirm them in this generous disposition. 


5. He had been telling them (vs. 5, 7) that ‘the end of all 
things was at hand,’ when ‘the living and the dead’ should 
be judged. But it was likewise revealed that ‘ the judgment’ 
—the work of Divine visitation and sifting—should begin 
with God’s own people. ‘This view, says Calvin, ‘was 
drawn by Peter from the familiar and uniform teaching of 
Scripture ; which I reckon more probable than that, as others 
think, some particular passage was intended. + He may, 
however, have remembered that when Jeremiah took the cup 
of God’s fury from the hand of the Lord, to ‘make all the 
nations to drink,’ he was required to present it first of all to 
‘Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, and the kings thereof, 
and the princes thereof ;’ and that in the visions of Ezekiel, 
when the ministers of wrath were to go through the midst of 
Jerusalem, ‘slaying utterly old and young, both maids and 
little children, and women,’ they were expressly charged to 


Vulgate, etc.,) is marked as of great authority by Bengel (who follows it in the 
_ German version) and Griesbach, and is adopted by Wells, Meyer, Lachmann, 

Tischendorf, Alford. But perhaps this reading itself is best explained as equiva- 
lent to the received, (so Wells, Meyer, Huther, etc.) 

* Phil. 1: 29; Heb. 11 : 26; Acts 5 : 41, (according to the better reading.) 

+ ‘Hane sententiam ex trita et perpetua Scripture doctrina sumpsit Petrus, 
idque mihi probabilius est quam quod alii putant, certum aliquem locum notari.’ 


Lecture XX VI.—Chapter 4 : 12-19. 205 


‘begin at God’s sanctuary.’* The same principle of pro- 
cedure holds still; and the reasons that may be assigned for ' 
it are various. ᾿ 

In general it may be said that all suffering is occasioned by 
sin, and that what good men even unjustly suffer at the hands 
of the wicked is, viewed under another aspect, but a right- 
eous chastisement of their own sinful imperfections. It is 
then to be considered that, in their case, after all that grace 
has done for them, sin has acquired additional aggravation, 
and ‘become exceeding sinful. As the Lord said of old to 
Israel: ‘You only have I known of all the families of the 
earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.’ ἡ 

Moreover, as with nations, so with believers, it is in this 
life that God manifests His displeasure at their offences. 

To this life also is confined the work of perfecting the 
saints through suffering. 

Again, the Church being ‘the house of God, it the more 
nearly concerns His honor, that the place of His residence be 
kept bright and pure. 

And, lastly, it is in the Divine order, that the Church shall 
be associated with Christ in the judgment of the world. Her 
own judgment, therefore, must precede. 

That judgment, accordingly, says Peter, now begins. ‘ For 
it is the tzme’—the set, the fitting, season—‘ for the judgment 
to begin from the house of God. ὁ That there was to be such 
an order in the process of judgment was known, or assumed 
by the Apostle as known, to his brethren. It was, at least, 
in itself fixed and certain, as much so as the fact of judgment, 
and the time appointed for it. But if so, there was the less 
reason why these sufferers should account their present trial 
‘a strange thing, or murmur against it, or struggle to escape 
from it, as such. 


6. And then, finally, how was this consideration strength- 


* Jer. 25 : 15-29 comp. 49:12; Ezek.g: 6. 

+t Rom. 7 : 13; Amos 3:2. 

t ὅτι ὁ καιρὸς τοῦ ἄρξασϑαι τὸ κρίμα ἀπὸ τοῦ οἴκου τοῦ Θεοῦ. Green (to whom 
Bloomfield assents) suggests, but on insufficient grounds, that perhaps the ἐστιν 
should be supplied before ἀπὸ τοῦ οἴκου τοῦ Θεοῦ. (Sin. omits ὁ.) 


206 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


ened when. they contrasted that trial, sharp as it was, yet 
lightened by so many gracious alleviations, with the wrath 
unmingled that awaited their now secure and boastful adver- 
saries. They themselves were but ‘chastened of the Lord, 
that they might not be condemned with the world.’ * 

‘ For it is the time for the judgment to begin from the house 
of God ; but if first from us, what shall be the end of those who 
disobey the Gospel of God?’ + He does not say, of those who 
persecute you, nor, of those who worship idols, and live in all 
manner of impurity. Wherever the Gospel comes, the dead- 
liest sin of which a man can be guilty, just because it is the 
darkest affront to the truth and love of God, and that which 
nullifies the provisions of His saving mercy, is unbelief of the 
Gospel—disobedience to its invitations and commands. If, 
then, that faith of God’s elect whereby they are reconciled to 
God, and work the work of God, does not exempt them, while 
on the way to their inheritance, from drinking of the Saviour’s 
cup of sorrow, and being baptized with the baptism that He 
was baptized withal, what must be the final portion of those 
who, receiving their good things in this present world, have to 
answer at last to unpropitiated justice, not only for all their 
other innumerable transgressions, but also for their frustration 
of the grace of God by Jesus Christ? If, to purify His own 
beloved Church from her remaining dross, the Redeemer 
casts her, though but for a little while, into the furnace, heat- 
ed it may be seven times, oh! what shall be the terrors of 
that Tophet, into which His enemies are plunged, and whose 
fire is not quenched? ‘If they do these things in a green 
tree, what shall be done in the dry?’ No serious mind can 
ponder the momentous elements that enter into the conside- 
ration of the case, without finding itself driven to ask this very 
question. But an Apostle does not undertake to answer it. 
He is, so to speak, nonplussed ; as when Paul too cried out, 
‘How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?’ Or, 


*oriCor. ΤΥ : 32. 

t εἰ δὲ πρῶτον ἀφ᾽ ἡμῶν (Sin.? Α5, ὑμῶν) τί τὸ τέλος TOV ἀπειϑούντων (as in ch. 
Dats 

¢ Tit. 1:1; John 6: 28, 29; Mark 9: 43; 10:39; Luke 16:25; 23:31; 
Dan. 3: 19; Is. 30 : 33. 


Lecture XX VI.—Chapter 4 : 12-19. “209 


as when, having alluded to the death without mercy of him 
that despised Moses’s law, he lays it upon his readers to deter- 
mine, if they could, ‘how much sorer punishment’ was due to 
the despisers of Christ’s Gospel. Just so here: ‘ What shall 
be the end?’* Says Leighton: ‘There is no speaking of it ; 
a curtain is drawn: silent wonder expresses it best, telling 
that it cannot be expressed. . . . O eternity, eternity!’ 
Yes, this at least may be asserted with confidence, that, of all 
possible answers to the question, the very last that Christ’s 
Apostles would have thought of is, that disobedience to the 
Gospel shall ever evd in the enjoyment of God’s favor, and in 
life eternal. 

The 18th verse is but a variation, taken from the old Greek 
version of Prov. 11 : 31, on the same awful theme. ‘And zf’ 
—as ye know by much painful experience—‘the righteous 
scarcely ts saved,| where shall the ungodly and sinner t appear ?’ 
It is obvious that, as the words are here used, ‘ the righteous” 
man, on the one hand, is not the perfected saint, but the man 
who, be his shortcomings what they may, has attained to ‘the 
righteousness of faith ;’§ and, on the other hand, ‘zhe ungodly 
and sinner’ is quite as plainly identified as one who ‘ disobeys 
the Gospel of God.’ 

Now, there is still a sense in which even ‘ the righteous 
scarcely 15 saved. After all that God has done by sending 
His Son, and the Son by sending the Holy Spirit, it is only 
with difficulty, exceeding difficulty, that the work of saving 
the righteous advances to its consummation. As the gate is 
strait, so narrow is the way which leadeth unto life. The en- 
trance into the kingdom lies through much tribulation— 
through fightings without and fears within—through the 
world’s seductions and its frowns—through the utter weakness 
and continual failures of the flesh, and the many fiery darts of 
Satan. That any single believer comes off at last victorious 
against so great apparent odds is to be accounted for only on 


* Hebi 25233) 1051 29¢ 

ft ei... σώζεται. Comp. p. 290, note ft. 

t ὁ ἀσεβὴς καὶ ἁμαρτωλός. Sin repeats the article before dy. 
§ Rom. 4: 13. 


298 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


the principle, that what with men is impossible is possible 
with God.* 

But if it be so with ‘the righteous ’—if he who has made his 
peace with God through the blood of Christ must still be saved 
so as by firet{—‘where shall the ungodly and sinner’—the 
alien from God and sin’s willing servant, who persists all his 
life through in rejecting alike the atonement and the aids of 
grace— ‘where shall he appear?’ Not, you may be sure, in 
the congregation of the righteous, nor at the marriage-supper 
of the Lamb, nor on the streets of the New Jerusalem, nor 
anywhere throughout God’s house of many mansions. For 
him there is no room, no welcome, there. ‘ Where, then, ‘ shale 
he appear ?? Again the Apostle simply asks the question, and 
again he seems to shrink from answering it ; as if faith itself 
feared to follow the outcast into that outer darkness. 

Such being the certain fate of the ungodly, let not the child 
of God be troubled by his ‘light affliction which is but for a 
moment.’ t Rather let him rejoice while he adores the mercy 
that saves him from so terrible a doom. And thus we reach 
the conclusion of the whole matter, as that is presented in the 
qgth verse. 


‘ Wherefore’—on all these various accounts ;§ seeing your 
‘affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble 
spring out of the ground, || but is sent unto you for your trial 
and purification ; since in this way you are made partakers 
of Christ's sufferings, of Christ’s glory, of Christ's Spirit ; 
remembering too that your present passing sorrow, in the 
severest aspect of it, is what falls to your share in the awards 
of that general judgment which shall finally and for ever over- 
whelm your foes ; zwherefore—‘ let those also who suffer accord- 
eng to the will of God’—those whom God appoints to suffering 
as the consequence of, or in connection with, the doing of His 
will—for this last condition must never be lost sight of—let 
such sufferers not quarrel with that wise and gracious will ; 
neither let them be discouraged, or grow faint and weary in 


ἘΜ.) ΣΙ; 19:2 265; Acts 14 : 22; 2 Cor. 7, 5,,etc., ἡ’, sik ΟΡ ant» 
2 ΘΟ. 2 ΣΝ 17. 

§ For we need not, as Alford, rest the conclusion on vv. 17, 18 merely. 

|| Job 5:6. 


Lective XX VI—Chapter 4 : 12-19. 299 


their Christian course; but let them ‘a/so,* and that none 
the less confidently because they suffer—hold on their way in 
the quiet assurance of faith. Let them ‘commit their souls to 
Him in well-doing} ast toa faithful Creator?§ Only where 
there is a conscientious devotion to duty can there be this 
confidence toward God. But wherever the former exists, how 
abundantly justified is the latter! He is the ‘Creator’ of the 
heavens and the earth. He is, therefore, the Almighty, and 
holds all things in the hollow of His hand. And His faithful- 
ness is equal to His power. You know the ‘exceeding great 
and precious promises, || of present strength and comfort and 
future glorious deliverance, made to those who suffer for His 
name’s sake. ‘ God is not a man, that He should lie; neither 
the son of man, that He should repent: hath He said, and 
shall He not do it? or hath He spoken, and shall He not 
make it good?’ Give, then, fear to the winds. Maintain the 
spirit of a living communion with God. ‘ Commit your souls’— 
yourselves—whatever is dearest and most precious—your all 
—to His keeping and disposal. He will ‘keep it against that 
day.’ For the present, He may seem to cast it as fuel to ‘ ¢he 
burning ;’ but He will not leave it to perish there. ‘Trust in 
the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and 
verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the Lord ; 
and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit 
thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him; and He shall 
bring it to pass.’ Meanwhile ‘there hath no temptation taken 
you but such as is common to man,’ or to your brethren that 
are in the world, (ch. 5 : 9:) ‘ but God is faithful, who will not 
suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able ; but will with 
the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be 
able to bear it.’** 

* καὶ ol πάσχοντες. The καί (neglected also by the Syriac, etc.) is generally 
regarded as emphasizing the participle. De Wette and Huther take it in close 
connection with ὥστε. 

+ παρατιϑέσϑωσαν (Luke 12 : 48; 23 : 46; 1 Tim. 1: 18; 2 Tim. 2: 2, etc.) τὰς 
ψυχὰς ἑαυτῶν (Bengel, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford, αὐτῶν, after Sin. A, G, J, 
and many cursive MSS.) ἐν ἀγαϑοποιΐᾳ, (Steiger, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford, 
[though his text inadvertently retains the singular,] read αγαϑοποιΐαις after A, cur- 
sive MSS., Syriac, Vulgate, etc.) The word is in the New Testament only here. 

t ὡς is cancelled by Lachmann and Alford. (Sin. A, B, Vulgate, etc.) 


* § κτιστής---ἰῃ the New Testament only here. ΒΕ τὲ 
ἘΣ Num, 23 : 19; 2 Tim. Σ 12} Ps. 37 : 3-5; 1 Cor. 10: 13. 


LECTORE( XNXV Tf: 


— 


1 PETER τ: 1-4. 


‘THE elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a wit- 
ness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be 
revealed: Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight 
thereof, not by constraint, but willingly ; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind ; 
neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but being ensamples to the flock. 
And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory 
that fadeth not away.’ 


From the digression that occupies the last eight verses of 
the 4th chapter, the writer now returns to finish what he had 
to say of the duties which his brethren owed to one another 
in the communion of the Church. And his first word is to 
the presbyters, or elders ; for in Greek the same term stands 
for both. 

This name, you are aware, had been in current use in the 
Jewish Church from the beginning, as denoting the heads of 
families to whom was largely committed the government of 
Israel. Originally a designation of age, it soon came to be 
no less expressive of the office. And when transferred, as it 
seems to have been as a matter of course, to the superin- 
tendents of the Christian Church, composed as that was at 
first of material drawn chiefly from the Synagogue, it would 
naturally retain its twofold significance. Only, since the New 
Testament organization was constructed not so much of tribes 
and families as of individuals, the secondary sense would in 
this case more easily become the predominant one. 

It is observable that we have no account of the institution 
of the New Testament eldership. It first comes incidentally 
into view as something already existing in the church of 


Lecture XX VIT—Chapter 5 : 1-4. 301 


Jerusalem ; and the next thing we read of it is that, in the 
course of Paul's first missionary tour in the Lesser Asia, 
he and Barnabas ‘ordained elders in every church’ *—plainly 
because this office was a necessary element of a complete 
ecclesiastical organization. Very probably some of those 
very men still survived to receive Peter’s generous and affec- 
tionate address. 

Notice the pains he is at to secure for that address a ready 
and obedient welcome. Though, like Paul, he too might have 
been ‘much bold in Christ to enjoin, he prefers, also like 
Paul, ‘for love’s sake rather to beseech, or exhort.j He does 
not obtrude even his legitimate apostolical authority ; far less 
does he assume to speak er cathedra as primate or pope. He 
takes his place alongside of his brethren, and talks to them 
as one of themselves—as being himself ‘a/so an elder, or, as 
his own word is, ὦ co-presbyter or fellow-elder.~ He served 
the same Lord as they; and, while his ministerial jurisdic-- 
tion was of much wider extent, his work and his reward were 
essentially the same. They would, therefore, understand that 
what he was about to say to them he considered equally bind- 
ing on himself. ‘There is peculiar force, says Bengel, ‘in 
the mutual exhortation of equals and colleagues.’ ὃ 

He does, indeed, claim one distinction, and only one: he 
was ‘a witness of the sufferings of Christ. He had seen Jesus 
Christ our Lord. He had companied with him all the time 
that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us. And, what 
~ he now loved chiefly to remember, distasteful as the theme 
had once been to him, he had witnessed His sufferings. He 
had looked on the Saviour’s humiliation—His poverty and 
homelessness and weariness—and while Jews and Gentiles 
alike despised and rejected Him. He had beheld His tears 
by the grave of Lazarus, and as He wept over Jerusalem. 
He had been with him in Gethsemane, and had sat in the 
court of the High-Priest’s house, when they ‘did spit in His 


* Acts σε 30:57 945323: 

+ παρακαλεῖν is the word, both here and in Philem. 9. 

{ ovp-(Sin. ovv-)-mpeoBitepo¢g— found nowhere else. Comp. 2 John 1 and 
3 John t. 

§ ‘Hortatio mutua inter zquales et collegas imprimis valet.’ 


302 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


face, and buffeted Him, and others smote Him with the palms 
of their hands.’ Nor are we willing to doubt that the repent- 
ant disciple was among ‘the acquaintance’ of Jesus, who, 
with ‘the women that followed Him from Galilee, stood afar 
off beholding,’ as He hung and died on the cross.* And as 
Peter had thus been an eye-witness, so he was now an official 
witness, of these things—a ‘witness unto the people,’ or, in 
the terms of the promise of the risen Saviour, a ‘witness 
unto Him both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Sama- 
ria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth’+ Of the 
apostolic testimony in general ‘the sufferings of Christ’ 
formed a very prominent, and in some respects a fundamental, 
portion. And to that testimony, as resting on what he had 
seen with his own eyes, the expression of the writer, I be- 
lieve, refers. 

Some distinguished interpreters, however, it is proper to 
mention, have supposed that along with one or both of these 
ideas, t or even to the exclusion of them altogether,§ Peter 
calls himself ‘a witness of the sufferings of Christ’ on the 
ground that in his own person he participated in, and so re- 
presented, those sufferings, ‘always bearing about in the 
body’—to use Paul’s language—‘the dying of the Lord 
Jesus.’ || But this explanation, which certainly the words be- 
fore us do not so readily suggest, strikes me as rather a need- 
less refinement. On the other hand, it was as natural as it 
was likely to be influential in commending, to the members 
and ministers of the suffering churches, whatever the writer 

«iad to say, on the behalf of Christ, to remind them of what 

he was so much in the habit of announcing in his oral ad- 
dresses,** to wit, that he was one of the ‘witnesses chosen 
before of God’ to publish, and as of their own knowledge to 
attest, ‘the sufferings of Christ; and whatever else Tt con- 
cerned the Church to know of her Saviour’s life on earth. 
Thus understood, moreover, the clause involves a delicate 
assertion of the writer’s apostolic standing. 


A TAC OMO τ, ACts τὸς Ζι; Matt.26 2167, O91 luke 23) - 20; etc. 
ANS TT SS eye se t Gerhard, Bengel, Besser, Wiesinger. 
§ Calvin, Huther. || 2 Cor. 4 : 10. 

ra VACtS Τὸ: 22; 2:22; Su 15 5 50: 32): 10΄: 29, 40, 0 Compuzrretalme sos 


Lecture XX VIT—Chapter § : 1-4. 303 


And then he immediately returns to what was common 
to him with his brethren, by adding, ‘and also a partaker of 
the glory that shall be revealed, or about to be revealed* Of 
his own personal interest in that coming glory, Peter, it ap- 
pears, had not a whit more doubt, than in regard to either of 
the other two facts previously mentioned. He was assured 
of it both by the express promises of his faithful Lord, and 
by the ever present witness of the Spirit.in his heart. As 
his faith, upheld by the Saviour’s intercessory grace, had not 
failed in its hour of sorest trial, when Satan desired to have 
the Apostles that he might sift them as wheat, so he well 
knew that, in the kingdom appointed unto those who had fol- 
lowed Christ in His temptations, one, and we may well be- 
lieve not the least conspicuous, of the apostolic thrones was 
reserved for him.f This illustrious destiny, however, so far 
from separating him in fact or in feeling from the humble elders 
to whom he wrote, is mentioned for the sake of conciliating 
the greater confidence in his counsels, as of ‘one that had 
obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful,’ and as a guarantee 
of his community of interests with them, and of their future 
and everlasting union with himself, if they too, in their seve- 
ral spheres of duty and trial, were found following him, as he 
followed Christ.t 

Let us, then, pass on to the exhortation itself, to which so 
noble a preamble introduces us. 


‘ The elders that§ are among you’—all of them, without ex- 
ception ; for there is no need to confine the address to such 
as ‘labored in the word and doctrine, || even though these may 
have been specially intended—‘ 7 ervhort, who am a fellow-elder, 
and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker 
of the glory about to be revealed: Feed the flock of God. 


* μελλούσης ἀποκαλύπτεσϑαι. Comp. Rom. 8: 18, τὴν μέλλουσαν δόξαν ἀπο- 
καλυφϑῆναι. 

t Luke 22 : 28-32. it) (Col gs Obs ag tis 

§ For τούς Lachmann and Alford read οὖν, (A, B, and some cursive MSS..,) 
which Huther also favors, and would refer to ἀγαϑοποιίαις of ch. 4 : 19. Sin. 
οὖν τούς. 

[ΠΕ ΤΣ τῆν κ᾿: 17. 


304. Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


This, you might suppose, can have been meant only for 
ministers of the Gospel—for pastors who were also preachers 
—men ordained to ‘feed’ the people of God ‘ with knowledge 
and understanding’ (Jer. 3: 15) from the storehouse of the 
Divine word. And it is quite true that this was the main 
business of some of those addressed. But that the restriction 
is still unnecessary may be inferred from the expression Peter 
employs. That expression is, indeed, one of the two* used by 
the Lord to himself, when committing to the restored Apostle 
the care of His sheep. But it comes directly from the gene- 
ral name of shepherd, and so includes all the departments of 


‘the faithful herdman’s art’ —the guiding, ruling, defending, 


healing, as well as the feeding, of his charge. The exhorta- 
tion, therefore, is to act as shepherds to—to tend—the flock of 
God. 

And this is confirmed by the explanatory addition, ‘ taking 
the oversight thereof, or overseeing it ; for it is the exercise, 
not the assumption, of the oversight, that is thought of. The 
Greek word is kindred with one of the names applied to our 
Lord in the last verse of the second chapter, and there ren- 
dered Bishop in our common version. Some, accordingly, 
would translate here also on the same principle: dzscharging 
the duty of bishop, exercising the episcopal office, etc.§ But I 
incline to think that both here and there the Apostle regarded 
less the ecclesiastical title, d¢skops—which indeed belonged, 
beyond all decent question or cavil, to the New Testament 
presbyters or elders—than the radical meaning of the word, 
which is simply to zzspect or oversee.|| What Peter then says 
really amounts to this: Act your part as shepherds in the 
oversight of the flock. 

And how much is there at once of motive, and of encou- 
ragement, and of warning, in being” reminded to whom that 
flock belongs! It is not your flock, but God’s ; and His are 





* ποιμαίνειν. The other is βόσκειν. John 21 :15-17. See Revision of Fude 
12, note 2. 

+ Milton’s Zyczdas, 121. 

t émicxoroivtec—cancelled by Tischendorf, after Sin.! B. 

§ Calvin, Benson, Doddridge, Semler, Macknight, Barnes. 

|| Comp. p. 183, note ft. . 


Lecture XX VII—Chapter 5 : 1-4. 305 


the pastures in which it feeds. He ‘purchased it with His 
own blood,’ and through the pathless wilderness He is leading 
it to His heavenly fold. Meanwhile, ‘the eyes of the Lord 
are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto 
the end of the year,’ as well as upon the under-shepherds 
through whom partly He now provides for its nourishment 
and its safety. * 

It was, however, but a portion of the one, wide-spread flock 
of God, for whose safe-keeping these elders were immediately 
responsible ; and hence the qualification, ‘the flock of God 
that is among you ;’ for the marginal rendering,} as much as 771 
you ἦς, is in this instance altogether inferior. It was probably 
suggested as a way of avoiding the seeming awkwardness of 
speaking of the elders as among the church-members, and 
then of the church-members as among the elders. But may 
not this very phraseology have been adopted for the purpose 
of impressing the more vividly on both parties the peculiar 
intimacy of their union as of the same body and members one 
of another? (Rom. 12:5.) The wordt for among is really that 
which answers to our zz. And a similar use of it occurs in 
Paul’s address to the elders of Ephesus, when he requires 
them to ‘take heed to all the flock zz which’—not over which 
—‘the Holy Ghost had made them overseers.’ We are even 
reminded of that primary and deeper reciprocity, in which is 
the Church’s life: ‘I am in the Father, and ye in me, and I 
in you.’§ | 


And now let us see in what spirit the elders were to exer- 
cise that pastoral oversight, which was the function of their 
office. This is defined in three particulars, and in each case 
first negatively and then positively. 

‘Not by constraint, or as of necessity ;|| not because you 


* Acts 20:28; Deut. 11 : 12. 

{+ Adopted by Erasmus, Calvin, Vatablus, and allowed as possible by Aretius 
and Winer. But the sense is rather flat, and the phrase itself, τὸ ἐν ὑμῖν ποίμ- 
viov, by no means parallel to τὸ κατ’ ἐμέ of Rom. 1: 15, or τὸ ἐξ ὑμῶν of Rom. 
12: Τὸ: 

t ἐν, § Acts 20 : 28; John 14: 20. 

|| dvayxkactée—in the New Testament only here. Comp. 1 Cor. 9 : 16, 17; 
Philem. 14. 


306 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


find yourselves ina relation and under obligations, from which 
you know not how to escape with honor or safety; not as 
Jonah struggled beneath the burden of the Lord, which he 
would fain have shaken off, and could not ; du¢ ‘ wzllingly, * 
as Jacob served Laban for Rachel’s sake, from the love you 
bear to the Lord, and to His flock, and to the holy and bless- 
ed, however toilsome and perilous, work itself. 

‘Nor for filthy lucre’+ Without doubt, the laborer is wor- 
thy of his hire ; and it is Christ’s express ordinance, that they 
who preach the Gospel shall live by the Gospel.{ The ar- 
rangement is for the benefit of all concerned ; but it is true 
also, that the great business and aim of Christ’s ministers is to 
preach the Gospel, not to live by it; to feed the flock, not to 
feed themselves ; to spend and be spent in Christ’s service, 
not to bear the bag in His company. Alas for the man who 
intrudes into this sacred office, or holds on to it, that he ‘may 
eat a piece of bread,’ or enjoy the emoluments of the richest 
bishopric in Christendom.§ What were otherwise an honor- 
able subsistence—honorable beyond the patrimony of princes 
—becomes by that man’s touch ‘filthy lucre’ indeed—éase 
gains—more sordid by far than the fragments from other 
men’s tables, with which the helpless but honest beggar seeks 
to allay his hunger—the very reward of ‘ Balaam, the son of 
Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness.’|| Beware, 
then, lest your willingness be such only as is stimulated by 
the hope of the meat or the gold that perisheth ; ‘dt’ let it 
be that ‘of a ready mind’**—of a mind forward of itself, not 
measuring its efforts by the prospect of external advantage, 
but quickened and impelled by its own inward and Divine 
principles. 


* After ἐκουσίως Meyer and Lachmann read (and Steiger doubtfully) κατὰ ϑεόν, 
(Sin. A.) 

t μηδὲ (Tischendorf, μὴ) αἰσχροκερδῶς, (found only here; the adjective in 
Teli, 5.9, 5 and Lit. 1:77.) 

ἘΤΙΚΕΤΟ 7} 1 Cor. : τὰ. 

§ Ezek. 34 : 1-10; 2 Cor. 12: 15; John 12:6; 1 Sam. 2: 36. 

pee Retees rs 
** roodtuoc—in the New Testament only here. Comp. the use of the adjec- 
tive in Mark 14 : 38; Rom. 1 : 15, and of the noun in 2 Cor. 8: 11, 12, 19; 9: 2. 


! 


Lecture XX VII1—Chapter 5 : 1-4. 307 


‘Nor as being lords over’*—overruling, says the margin— 
lording over perhaps gives it best, whether what is condemned 
be the bare possession and exercise of lordship,} or the tyran- 
nical exercise of it to the injury and oppression of others ; + 
inasmuch as the claim to any such thing, even in its mildest 
form, within the Church is itself a usurpation, and an offence 
against the law of the Church’s constitution. All genuine rule 
here is in no sense a lordship, but an administration under 
Christ.§ Little did Peter dream, except as it may have been 
revealed to him by the Spirit, of the heights of blasphemous 
arrogance to which some were afterward to ascend, on the 
_lying pretence of being his successors. 

‘Nor as lording over God's heritage. The word God’s, you 
can see for yourselves by glancing at your books, is not in the 
original ; and eritage also is there.in the plural number ||— 
literally then, ‘zor as lording over the heritages. But there is 
no reference here, as has been rather absurdly supposed, to 
church property,** or to the possessions of worldly rulers,}f or 
the province of the Roman proconsul,#¥ or to the clergy as dis- 
tinct from the laity.§§ Primarily the word in the singular means 
a lot, and then az allotted portion, a possession, heritage ; in 
which secondary sense it is in the Old Testament applied to 
Israel as the lot of God’s inheritance.||||_ And, accordingly, 


* und’ ὡς κατακυριεύοντες. 

t In favor of κατακυριεύω---κυριεύω (Leigh, Wolf, Steiger, Trollope, etc.) ap- 
peal may be made to Matt. 20:25 and Mark 10: 42 as compared with Luke 
22 : 25 and 2 Cor. 1 : 24; also to frequent Septuagint usage, as Ps. 72 : 8, etc, 

1 According to the frequent force of κατά with the genitive. Comp. Acts 19 : 
16 and Sept. Ps. 10: 10. In this sense the word is here taken by many of the 
Roman Catholic divines, as Bellarmine, Corn. a Lapide, Estius, (misquoted by 
De Wette ;) also by Guyse, Pott, Bretschneider, Wahl, Huther, Alford, εἰς. 

§ Erasmus: ‘ Non est tyrannis, sed administratio.’ 

|| τῶν κλήρων. 

** Dodwell’s interpretation, which I find mentioned with respect only by Whit- 
by and Schleusner. 

tt Cocceius. tt Hammond. 

§§ Corn. a Lapide and some other Roman Catholic writers. Jerome and Cicu- 
menius are often cited as giving the same view. CVergy is the word of Wiclif 
and the Rhenish for the transferred cleris of the Vulgate and other Latin ver- 
sions. 

|| || God’s 7373, (Deut. 9 : 29, Sept. κλῆρος; Deut. 32 : 9, Is. 19 : 25, etc., Sept. 
κληρονομία.) j 


308 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


this idea has often been supposed to be here transferred to 
the Christian Church.* But, considering the change of num- 
ber already adverted to, I think it better, and it is at least 
quite as common, to understand by ‘¢he heritages’ the parti- 
cular churches as allotted by the great Lord of all to the sev- 
eral elders respectively—these elders’ parishes, as it stands 
in two of our oldest English versions.t That allotment had 
been made for the good of the churches themselves, not at all 
for the temporal glory or aggrandizement of the elders. The 
former were not subjected to the arbitrary control of the latter, 
but intrusted, by Him who gave His life for the sheep, to 
their loving pastoral care. The lordly spirit, therefore, was 
utterly unsuitable to their official relation. And it was equally ἢ 
unbecoming their character as Christians. 

This last thought is finely suggested by the positive duty 
that is set over against this special delinquency: ‘dt being 
ensamples’—becoming, making yourselves, patternst— to the 
frock, as in all other good things,§ so not least in the essential 
graces of humility, brotherly-kindness, and charity. Let it 
suffice to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said: 
‘Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion 
over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon 
them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will 
be great among you, let him be your minister ; and whosoever 
will be chief among you, let him be your servant: even as the 
Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, 
and to give His life a ransom for many. ’ || 


Having thus sought to guard his brethren in the eldership 
against the very vices, which subsequent ages have shown to 
be the easily besetting sins of the Christian ministry,** and 


* Calvin (who, however, recognizes here the idea of a plurality of churches) 
and many others. Our translators follow the Geneva version. 

+ Tyndale and Cranmer.—Comp. the προσεκληώϑησαν (were allotted) of Acts 
17 : 4, and the address of Theophanes, a Sicilian bishop of the 12th century, to 
his hearers: ὦ κλῆρος ἐμός. See also Suicer, s. v. ; Marck’s Scripturarie Exer- 
citationes, xxv.; and Wolf’s Cure. 

t τύποι γινόμενοι. Comp. p. 192, note ||, and Lect. on Thess., Ὁ. 64. 

Sreustle slate 31/75 | Acts 20 : 35; Matt. 20: 25-8. 

** Calvin: ‘tria vitia... quz plurimum obesse solent.’ 


Lecture XX VII.—Chapter § : 1-4. 309 


having set before them the true ideal of their holy office, the 
Apostle ends by pointing them to the exceeding great reward 
of every faithful pastor of the flock of God. 

‘ And’—in sure sequence and as the infallible result of such 
a ministry —‘ when the chief Shepherd shall appear, or ἐς 
mantfested,* ‘ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not 
away. Who the chief Shepherd was, was well known to the 
elders, and Peter needed not to name Him—‘ the good Shep- 
herd ’—‘ that great Shepherd of the sheep ’t—and Lord of the 
shepherds, who over all the earth and in all ages of the 
Church assigns to every man his charge. It is indeed proba- 
ble that very few, if any, of these elders had ever seen the 
Lord Jesus ; but they doubted no more than Peter himself 
did, not only that He had already been manifested in flesh, 
but that He was yet a second time to be manifested in glory.t 
This also, therefore, is as usual taken for granted, and what is 
directly affirmed is merely the personal interest of faithful 
pastors in the future revelation of Christ. In that day of 
solemn reckoning with His servants, ‘ye shall receive’ from 
His own blessed hand, and dear off§ amid the acclamations of 
assembled saints and angels, ‘¢he|| uzfading crown of glory, 
The humble, laborious shepherds of the flock shall now reign 
as kings, and glory itself shall be their crown**—not such 
glory as once decked the brows of the conquerors and mon- 
archs of the earth, and soon was quenched in the darkness 
and dishonor of the sepulchre. For theirs was ‘a corruptible 
crown, but this is ‘an incorruptible,’ and, lasting as long as 
that which beams on the head of the chief Shepherd Himself, 
shall evermore increase in brightness. It is ‘the crown of 
life’—a life subject to no attaint of death or decay—which He 
who ‘ was dead and is alive’ promised to give to the man, who 
in his appointed station in the Church should be found, 


* ’Apyiroiunv—in the New Testament only here.—davepwHévroc, the same verb 
asinch. 1:20. See p. 78, note *. 

§ John 10: 11; Heb. 13 : 20. t See on ch. 1: 7, 8, 13. 

t κομιεῖσϑε---566 p. 42, note *, 

|| t6v—singling out this crown as the only one of its kind. A similar disregard 
of the article occurs in the common version of Rev. 2 : Io. 

** ©Of glory’ being the genitive of apposition—not (as Kuinél, Rosenmiiller, 
Bloomfield, etc.) glorious crown, Comp. Heb. 2 : 9. 


310 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


through all toil and poverty and tribulation, ‘ faithful unto 
death. * 

It may deserve to be mentioned that, while the wordt here 
translated ‘that fadeth not away’ seems to be but another 
form of one that is rendered in the same way at ch. 1: 4, 
many { think it rather bears an allusion to the poetic fancy of 
an unfading flower, called the amaranth—the ‘immortal ama- 
rant ’$—just as if we were to say, the amaranthine crown, or 
‘evergreen wreath’|| of glory. But this, at the best, is very 
doubtful. 


In the present lecture we have been led to review the posi- 
tion, duties, and reward, of the shepherds and overseers of ‘the 
flock of God.’ Butis there nothing in this passage for you, 
the private members of the Church? Ah! how much is there 
in that one expression, ‘ the flock of God’ ! and how much in the 
fact, that of that flock the chief Shepherd and Overseer (ch. 
2:25) isthe Sonof God! This is ‘the Shepherd, the Stone of 
Israel,’ who in the days of old ‘led Joseph like a flock’ through 
the Red Seaand the wilderness. ‘ His ways are everlasting ;’ 
His power, wisdom, and love, ‘the same yesterday and to- 
day and for ever.’ See that ye rebel not against Him, nor 
listen to the ‘ voice of strangers.’** Be loyal and cordial in your 
submission, yielding yourselves gladly to His guiding and re- 
straining hand. And then how secure may you feel yourselves 
to be there! The way by which He is leading you may some- 
times seem ‘strange’ (ch. 4 : 12) and difficult and full of peril. 
But, if it be the way of, His choosing, you know that it is the 
safest and the best. 


* 1 Cor.g: 25; Rev.2:8-10. Comp. Lect. on Thess. Ὁ. 160. 

+ ἀμαράντινον (Hesychius, dontrov—as from a privative and papaivoyas)—in 
the New Testament only here. 

} From Stephens to Alford. Bloomfield quotes from Clement of Alexandria, 
Pedag. iii. 8, 73, in proof that he too so understood the word: ὁ καλὸς τοῦ ἀμα- 
ράντου στέφανος ἀπόκειται τοῖς καλῶς πεπολιτευμένοις. 

8 Milton, Paradise Lost, ili. 353, 360. Comp. xi. 77-8: 


*... from their blissful bow’rs 
Of Amarantin shade.’ 


|| Peile. 
** Gen. 49:24; Ps, 80:1; Hab. 3:6; Heb. 13:8; John io: 5. 


Lecture XX VII.—Chapter 5 : 1-4. 311 


Remember, too, that He who gave Himself for you gave 
you also, when He ascended up far above all heavens, as one 
of the parting pledges of His unalterable love, ‘pastors and 
teachers, those under-shepherds of the sheep. Over them, 
as over you, His will is still supreme, at the same time that 
they are your servants for Jesus’ sake. ‘ Whether Paul, or 
Apollos, or Cephas,. . . all are yours.’* 

But in this, as in every other moral and spiritual relation, 
the duties are, of course, reciprocal. While devoting them- 
selves faithfully to the discharge of their legitimate functions, 
they represent to you, however faintly, Christ Himself—His 
authority and His grace. Obey them, therefore, and esteem 
them very highly in love, both for Christ’s sake and for their 
work’s sake. They claim no ‘dominion over your faith,’ but, 
holding up ever before your eyes the cross of your Redeemer, 
unfolding the precepts and promises of His word, administer- 
ing the sacramental seals of His covenant, and blessing you 
in His name, they ‘are helpers of your joy.’t 

And, finally, you too may aspire to your full share in this 
glorious recompense of their reward. ‘The crown of right- 
eousness’ is not for Paul alone, but for ‘all them also that love 
the appearing’ of the Lord. Nor was that spoken to pastors 
and teachers alone: ‘ Brethren, if any of you do err from the 
truth, and one convert him, let him know, that he which con- 
verteth the sinner from the error of his way, shall save a soul 
from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.’ No, nor that 
yet greater word by Daniel: ‘ They that be wise shall shine as 
the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to 
righteousness, as the stars for ever and ever. ἔτι 


* Eph. 4: 10, 11; 1 Cor. 3: 22; 2Cor. 4 : 5. 5 
+t Heb. 13:17; 1 Thess. 5: 13; 2 Cor. 1 : 24. 
t 2 Tim. 4:8; James 5:19, 20; Dan. 12 : 3.—On the general subject of this 


Lecture, comp. Lect. on Thess. pp. 312-25. 


LECT OREO AST Tih 


1 PETER τ: 5-7. 


‘ LIKEWISE, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you 
be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the 
proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the 
mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time: casting all your care 
upon Him; for He careth for you.’ 


HERE we have the word of exhortation directed first to 
another class of church-members, and then to all without dis- 
tinction in church-communion. But who are the ‘younger’ ? 
and who the ‘ ¢he e/der, to whom they are required to submit 
themselves ? 

These questions have occasioned no small discussion, and 
yet they would scarcely have been raised at all, were it not 
that the latter of the two terms had just been used in the 
first verse in its official sense. Hence very many* would re- 
tain that sense here also, and understand by the ‘younger 
the unofficial members,f or the younger members as being 
the most prone to insubordination, + or church-officers of 
lower degree, as deacons, etc.§ On the other hand, it is 
obvious that our translators preferred to consider the two 
classes as opposed chiefly, if not altogether, in respect of age ; 
nor do I regard the objections|| to this view as by any means 
conclusive. 


* From Bede to Alford. + So most. +t Grotius, De Wette. 

§ Cajetan, Salmeron, Corn. a Lapide, Mosheim, Pyle, Trollope; and so νεώ- 
Tepot is understood in Acts 5 :6 by Hammond, Mosheim, Kuinol, Olshausen, 
Meyer, Conybeare and Howson ; but in both instances, I conceive, erroneously. 

|| As stated by Beza, Estius, Brown, etc. 


Lecture XX VIM—Chapter 5 : 5-7. 313 


One of these objections is the unlikelihood of such a sud- 
den change in the meaning of the word for ‘¢he elder’ * But, 
as similar changes are far from being rare in the sacred writ- 
ings,} so it is curious that the particular example thus object- 
ed to occurs again in one of the Epistles of Paul. ‘Rebuke 
not an elder, but entreat him as a father ; and the younger 
men as brethren ; the elder women as mothers; the younger 
as sisters, with all purity.” Here there can be little doubt 
that itis the age of the several parties that is exclusively 
thought οἱ But only a few verses after in the same chapter 
the official sense comes as distinctly into view: ‘Let the’ 
elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, espe- 
cially they who labor in word and doctrine. Against an el- 
der receive not an accusation, but before two or three wit- 
nesses.’ 

Again, it is said that the connective ‘ Zewise’ seems to 
imply that the duty now to be enjoined is, if not strictly cor~ 
relative to the one immediately preceding, at least kindred 
with it, or of ‘the same general family of duties’ § This may 
be granted, without our being compelled thereby to give up 
the interpretation in question. The elders had just. been 
warned against the exhibition of any spirit of lordliness in the 
exercise of their office.. And then the youpger members of 
the Christian community are exhorted, on the same principle 
of keeping every man in his own place, to submit themselves 
to the older.. But it may be, that all the likeness intended 
between the case of the elders and that of the younger was, 
that they were both ‘under law to Christ. (1 Cor. 9g: 21.) 

Appeal is also made, however, to the apostolic method of 
joining together strictly correlative duties, as of husbands and 
wives, parents and children, masters and servants.||_ The pre- 
vious verses, therefore, having set forth the duty of the office- 
bearers to their churches, we might now expect a statement 
to follow of the duty of the churches to their office-bearers. 


* This objection Alford regards as ‘fatal to the view.’ 

+ For example, 1 Pet. 3 : 1.—See p. 187, note *. 

LOADS BEG ἢ, ni). 

§ Brown. Comp. ch. 2:17 and3:1, 7. Sin.! ὁμοίως δέ. 

| 1 CH. 331,73; Eph. 5 : 22,25; 6:1, 4, 5,9; Col. 3 : 18-22; 4:1. 


314 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


But in the present case —vunless, indeed, the expression 
‘younger’ of the fifth verse is to be taken as fully equivalent 
to ‘the heritages’ of the third, that is, for the entire body of 
a church, with the single exception of the presbyters—we 
must admit a modification in one term of the comparison ; 
and why not of the other? Only recollect that, according to 
the primary import of the term, the probabilities of the case, 
and the example of Hebrew history, the elders* generally 
may have been taken from among the elderly members of the 
congregation, and should we not sufficiently preserve a cor- 
respondence with what precedes by saying, that, in passing 
on to the universal enforcement in the next clause of the duty 
of mutual submission, the writer, without losing sight of these 
official elders, now extends his regard to the whole of the class 
to which by age they belonged, and is thus led to make the 
natural opposite of that class the other member in the present 
antithesis ? 

Lastly, it is objected that ‘not submission, but respect, is 
due from the young to the old.’+ But if, as is certain from 
what immediately follows, there is a sense in which submis- 
sion also is due from every man, even to those who are natu- 
rally, socially, or officially his equals or inferiors, still more 
emphatically is that true of the young in relation to their su- 
periors in age and experience. 

If, after all, the point is to be reckoned a doubtful one, the 
ambiguity might be preserved in English thus: ‘ Lzkewizse, ye 
younger, submit yourselves unto your elders. But, for myself, 
I see nothing that need hinder us from acquiescing in the idea 
that the Apostle here proclaims the law of nature and of Christ 
regarding what is becoming in the young toward those more 
advanced in life. They are to submit themselves—to cherish 
and manifest a spirit of deference and subordination. If ‘the 
glory of young men is their strength,’ let them know also 


* pps, ἢ γερουσία, senatus. 7 Brown. 

10 τῆι : τοῖς πρεσβυτέροις. But in the received text the article is wanting : 
νεώτεροι... MpecButéporc—=younger, (all such, and as being such,).. . 40 elder, 
(all who are so, and just because they are so.) Wiesinger errs in saying, that 
the absence of the article before the second word requires us to take it in the ec- 
clesiastical sense. 


Lecture XX VIII.—Chapter 5 : 5-7. 315 


that ‘the beauty of old men is the gray head ’—yea, ‘a crown 
of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness ;’ and, 
wherever it is seen among the children of God in the house- 
hold of faith, that may well be taken for granted. Let not the 
eager energy of the young, then, seek to thrust the aged into 
the background, or challenge equal position and respect with 
them. ‘Days should speak, and multitude of years should 
teach wisdom.’ If even in the regular administration of the 
discipline of the church the prerogative of age was not to be 
disregarded, (1 Tim. 5 : 1, 2,) much more should it be recog- 
nized in the ordinary intercourse of the young. ‘Thou shalt 
rise up before the hoary head, and honor the face of the old 
man, and fear thy God: I am the Lord.’* 

I am well aware how little agreeable such teaching is to an 
age which rather laughs and prides itself in the development 
of quite another spirit, while the natural bonds of the family 
and of society too often seem as if dissolving before its eyes. 
Both in the Church and in the management of civil affairs, 
the tendency now is rather to set the aged aside, and to pay 
our court to the young. And, as the lessons of flattery are 
easily learned, we need not wonder at the many instances in 
which ‘ the child behaves himself proudly against the ancient, 
and the base against the honorable.’ Is there not danger 
that the threatened curse of Judah may light on us, ‘And I 
will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over 
them’ ? T 

Meanwhile the Divine law on the subject, however it may 
be trifled with by a reckless frivolity, or scouted by the pro- 
fane, suffers no change for the accommodation of Young 
America: ‘Ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. 
Readily yield to them the precedence that is theirs of right. 
In every good thing be not ashamed to follow their example. — 
Respect their judgment. Weigh well, before you venture to 
disregard, the counsels of their experience. And, above all, 
think not to show either manliness or wit by taking upon you. 
in their presence, and as against them, the airs of an indepen- 
dent self-assertion. 


* Proy..20: 29; 16:31; Job 32:7; Lev. 19 : 32. 1 15.2.9 4. 5» 


316 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


It is, indeed, quite noticeable how largely this same doc- 
trine of submission enters into the code of Christian morals. 
We find it pressed continually as the main point in the duty 
of the wife to her husband, of the child to the parent, of the 
servant to his master, of the citizen to the state, of churches 
to their presbyters, of the younger to the older. But how far 
Christ’s free and generous Gospel is from either inculcating 
a servile spirit on the one side, or tolerating an arbitrary, 
despotic spirit on the other side, in any one of these relations, 
is apparent enough from the very next clause of the verse, 
‘ Yea, all of you be subject one to another’—or, since the word 
is the same as before, and at the parallel, Eph. 5 : 21: ‘ Way, 
all submitting to one another’ *—‘ be clothed with humility. 

But how, you may ask, are all the members of a well- 
ordered church to practise mutual submission? [5 there not 
something of contradiction and paradox in the precept itself? 
It is at any rate a paradox of frequent occurrence in the New 
Testament. It came first from the lips of our blessed Lord 
Himself: ‘He that is greatest among you, let him be as the 
younger ; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. And 
how was it illustrated by His own example: ‘So after He 
had washed their feet, and had taken His garments, and was 
set down again, He said unto them, Know ye what I have 
done to you? Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say 
well; for so I am. If I, then, your Lord and Master, have 
washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another’s feet. 
For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have 
done to you.’ It is but a varied expression of the same great 
lesson when, writing to some of the churches here addressed 
by Peter, Paul exhorted them to fulfil the law of Christ by 
bearing one another’s burdens. And so in another Epistle, 


* πάντες δὲ ἀλλήλοις ὑποτασσόμενοι. For dé—(Camerarius: ‘Sed verius est, 
ut omnes, etc.’)—comp. p. 487, note 2.—Mill, (Pro/. 1502,) Huther, and Wiesin- 
ger condemn ὑποτασσόμενοι (see p. 357) as a gloss, and the word has been can- 
celled by Wells, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford, on the authority of Sin. A, B, 
some cursive MSS., Syriac, Vulgate, etc. Mill, Lachmann, De Wette, (if this 
reading bé followed,) and Huther then construe ἀλλήλοις with ὑποτάγητε ; Wells, 
Tischendorf, Wiesinger, and Alford, with ἐγκομβώσασϑε, as a dative of advan- 
tage. 


Lecture XX VIII.—Chapier § : 5-7. S17 


‘In lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than 
themselves,’ every man knowing more of his own weakness 
and imperfections than he can know of those of his neighbors, 
and it being every man’s business to judge himself, rather 
than his neighbors. And yet again, ‘In honor preferring 
one another,’ taking the lead one of another in all mutual 
honorable observance.* 

Nor in all this is there any real difficulty, when love is the 
interpreter. Every act of cheerful self-denial for the good of 
others—the ready recognition of whatever in them is valua- 
ble and praiseworthy—the yielding for their sakes of our own 
interests or rights—the joy of Apostles in being ‘offered on 
the sacrifice and service’ of the Church’s faith (Phil. 2 : 17) 
—a mother’s exhausting vigils by the cradle of her sick babe 
—the patriot rushing on death that his country may live— 
George Washington lifting his hat to the slave—Queen Vic- 
toria ministering at the bedside of poverty—what are these 
but so many illustrations of a principle, that is the root and 
essence of all genuine heroism, and of the most refined forms 
of a true courtesy ? 


It is, indeed, only where breathes the spirit of Christian 
humility, that this precept of submission of even the highest 
to the lowest is most easily understood, and brings forth the 
most abundant fruit. The knowledge and habitual remem- 
brance of what we ourselves are, not as compared with others, 
or as tried by the standards of worldly estimation, but as in 
the sight of God—this, together with the experience of that 
grace of God, which, when we were utterly guilty, and vile, 
and helpless, did not loathe us, nor despise us, nor exact upon 
us, but loved us even to death, both makes a man think 
humbly of himself, and inspires something of Christ’s own 
meekness and gentleness into his dealings with all around. 
Therefore says the Apostle: ‘ Be clothed with humility, 

The Greek verb ¢ is not found elsewhere in the New Tes- 


fluke 22 - 26; [ὉΠ 15. 2—-15-eGal-ug-::25, Phil. 72.757; Ron. 1273 10; 
(προηγούμενοι.) 
t+ Comp. p. 210. t éy-(Sin. ἐν-)-κομβόομαι. 


318 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


tament, and what is here its specific shade of meaning has 
been a good deal disputed. Some derive it from a word 
that denoted a small white garment worn by slaves over their 
sleeveless under-vest,* and would expound it thus: Putting 
on humility asa slave's frock, shows that you consider yourselves 
servants one of another. On the other hand, some, referring 
partly to the color of that garment, which is also said f to 
have been worn as well by boys and girls of. good birth, 
would make the idea of decoration the prominent one: Adorn 
yourselves, or, more commonly, Le znwardly adorned, with 
humility. The better derivation, however, is from a word ὃ 
signifying a strip of cloth, a fillet or string, for binding or 
fastening. And this might easily enough suggest the idea 
that humility is here represented as the belt or girdle which 
secures all the other Christian graces: Be girdled with humtt- 
zty ; so the phrase has been rendered.|| But the form of the 
original rather implies, that humility is not itself the girdle, 
but that which the girdle is to bind. I should therefore be 
willing to translate, (γαῖ on humility,** and regard Peter’s 
strange word as simply an emphasizing at least of Paul’s in- 
junction, if not intentionally also of his expression, in Col. 
3:12: ‘Put onff ... humbleness of mind.’ On the whole, 
I doubt not that the essential import is given by Bengel thus: 
‘Clothe and wrap yourselves in humility, so that it shall be 
impossible by any force to tear from you this covering.’ ἐξ 


* So Julius Pollux (Ovom. iv. 18) describes the ἐγκόμβωμα. The above ex- 
planation of the text is adopted, among others, by Heinsius, Grotius, Fritzsche, 
De Wette, Robinson. ἢ 

+ By Semler and others ; and the statement is favored by a passage cited from 
Varro by Nonius, (14. 38.)—Other points alleged by those who adopt this view 
are these : κομβώματα is in Suidas=xaAAwricuara, decorations ; ἐγκομβώματα are 
mentioned by Theodotion among the female ornaments of Is. 3 : 20; and the 
verb itself is sometimes defined in the glossaries by στολίσασϑαι. 

{ To this effect Pagninus, Beza, the Geneva Version, Bishops’ Bible, Pyle, 
Meyer, and others. 

§ κόμβος.---ἐγκόμβωμα rather comes from the verb. 

|| Brown, Peile. See Hammond’s note. Τί may be added, that in Is. 3 : 20 
Theodotius’s ἐγκομβώματα stands for pi wip, sédles. 


** Alford, I find, has adopted the same phrase. 
tt Paul: ἐνδύσασϑε ταπεινοφροσύνην.; Peter: ἐγκομβώσασϑε tare. 
tt ‘ Lnduite vos et involvite, ut amictus humilitatis nulla vi vobis detrahi possit.’ 


Lecture XX VIII —Chapter 5 : 5-7. 319 


Our Apostle’s earnestness in this matter is then justified 
by a reference to the declared judgment of God in regard to 
it. This he finds in Prov. 3 : 34, and, as usual, he silently 
adopts the passage from the Greek version, ‘ for God resist- 
eth’—arrays Himself against *— the proud ;’ in the words of 
Leighton, ‘He singles out pride for His grand enemy, and 
sets Himself in battle array against it ;’ ‘ dut to the humble 
He giveth grace, ἵ and still ‘ more grace’ {—manifests, that is, 
His special favor in growing measure for ever. As sang 
the Blessed Virgin: ‘He hath showed strength with His 
arm; He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of 
their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, 
and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry 
with good things ; and the rich He hath sent empty away.’ ὃ 
Or, to use Augustine’s figure: As water runs down from the 
swelling hills, and flows together into the lowly vale, so grace 
flows not but into humble hearts.|| To a very great extent 
the past history of the world, even in this state of partial re- 
sults, illustrates these two modes of God's dealing with men. 
But in the future consummation, to which the whole Epistle, 
especially in this last section of it, so largely refers us, they 
are yet to receive their perfect and final development. Then 
shall great Babylon—she that ‘ glorified herself and lived de- 
liciously’—go down like a millstone in the fiery flood ; and 
the persecuted Church—the betrothed spouse of Christ—re- 
called from the wilderness, and arrayed in the robes of joy 
and praise, shall be seen sitting beside her Lord at the mar- 
riage supper of the Lamb.** 


This general idea appears in many versions and commentaries, as the Syriac, 
CEcumenius, (ἐνειλήσασϑε, περιβάλεσϑε. NHesychius, as cited by Bengel, makes 
éyxexouBwrar=éveiAnrat; Phavorinus, as cited by Cocceius,=zegvetAnrat,) Lu- 
ther, Camerarius, Estius, Bloomfield, Huther, Wiesinger, etc. 

* ἀντιτάσσεται. + ταπεινοῖς δὲ δίδωσι χάριν. 

t James 4 : 6, etc., where the same passage is quoted, and in the same words. 

δ Luke 1 : 51-3. ‘ 

|| ‘Confluit enim aqua ad humilitatem convallis, defluit de tumoribus collis.’ 
Leighton : ‘His sweet dews and showers of grace slide off the mountains of 
pride, and fall on the low valleys of humble hearts, and make them pleasant and 
fertile.’ 

** Rev. 18: 7,21; 12:63 19: 7-9. 


320 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


With what persuasive force does the writer, in view of this 
method of the Divine administration, and with his eye fixed 
full on the glorious issue, now summon his brethren once 
more to a humble, cheerful acquiescence in the will of God 
concerning them, however for the present their lot might 
‘seem to be not joyous, but grievous’! * ‘ Humble yourselves, ἢ 
therefore, under the mightyt hand of God, that He’—some 
would say, that 7tS—‘ may exalt you tn due time:|| casting all 
your care —or rather, all your anxiety,** such as readily divides 
and distracts the mind in days of affliction and danger; the. 
word is altogether different from that in the latter clause— 
‘upon Him, for He careth for you. +t 

The hand of God is ‘ #zghty’—irresistible—whether in the 
restraining and subduing of His enemies, or in the defence 
and chastisement of His children, and their ultimate deliver- 
ance and exaltation. Seek not, suffering saints, to escape 
from its grasp. Shrink not, when it is lifted up to smite. 
Nowhere can you be so safe as in that ‘ mighty hand,’ or even 
beneath the strokes which it inflicts of a Father's love. ‘ Hum- 
ble yourselves, therefore, receiving in silent, meek submission 
whatever humiliation it may now lay upon you. For this is 
your time of trial, and, when the paternal rod meets thus with. 
the child-like spirit, will be surely followed by another time 
of healing and joy. ‘ Qur light affliction, which is but for a 
moment,’ needs but to be endured in faith, and then it ‘ work- 
eth for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.’ ἐξ 
See that you do not frustrate the gracious purpose of God, 
and lose the blessing of sorrow. Rather make that purpose 
yours also. ‘ Humble yourselves under His mighty hand, that’ 
—in accordance with the rule of His providence, and the oft- 


Avideb. 12): ΤΙ. 

} ταπεινώϑητε. Macknight, like the Vulgate and some other Latin versions, 
retains the passive form, de humbled. But see p. 137, note ἵ. 

t xparardv—in the New Testament only here.—Sin. χεῖραν. 

§ Syriac, Hensler. 

|| The addition ἐπισκοπῆς, (i the time of visitation,) adopted by Lachmann 
from A and the Vulgate, seems to have come from ch. 2: 12. 

¥#* μέριμναν, from μερίζω. The other word is μέλει. Comp. Matt. 6 : 25-34, 
where the word so often used by our Lord is μεριμνάω. 
ΟἿ Sin? ἡμῶν, ΓΖ, Cora ὁ πὴ, τ: 


Lecture XX VITI—Chapter 5 : 5-7. 321 


repeated promise of the Saviour *—‘ He may exalt you in due 
time. Leave to Him the determination of the time. It is 
already fixed. And, when it comes, He will not forget what 
belongs to it. Your present deep humiliation, even though 
you be called to lie in martyrs’ graves, will be as nothing, 
compared with the heights to which you shall then be raised. 
Through the opened heavens the cloud shall again appear, and 
by that same ‘ mzghty hand, beneath which you now bend and 
weep, you shall be ‘caught up unto God and to His throne.’ Ὁ 

Meanwhile, draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to 
you. Even now, in afflicting you, He dealeth with you as 
with sons. Do you-deal with Him as witha Father. Have 
faith in God—in His love, no less than in His power. In all 
your affliction He is afflicted. The very burdens He appoints 
unto you, He bears with you and for you. Yea, the whole 
of them He is willing to take upon Himself, by at least. fur- 
nishing you with strength of His own to bear them. He 
says: ‘Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain 
thee. Take Him at His word, and He will be as good as 
His word. ‘Ad your anxiety’—whether for the body or the 
soul, whether for this life or for that which is to come—all of 
it ‘cast upon Him, and know that in no other way can you 
please Him so well. You willthus best manifest your humil- 
ity, and that filial confidence which is His due: ‘for He careth 
for you. Your interests are His concern, and that far more 
than they are yours. Were it otherwise, He might let you 
alone, and certainly would not be at this pains in training and 
disciplining you; but, because it is so, those promises shall 
all of them be fulfilled to you: ‘As thy days, so shall thy 
strength be. ‘God will not suffer you to be tempted above 
that ye are able: but will with the temptation also make a 
way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.’ ‘Be careful 
for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and _ supplication 
with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. 
And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall 
keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.’ ἢ 
ἘΠ ΟΠ 3) Ik 5 22:20 ΕΞ ΤΣ 21 τον 20:25}; Matt: 27 212); Wuke ra: rr; 
18 : 14; James 4: Io, etc. Te Reveer2! “πο: 

t James 4:8: Heb. 12: 7, ὃ; Is. 63:9; Ps. 55:22; (LXX. τὴν μέριμναν 
ΤΟΣ) LOS. 4 : 17; Deut.133) 25 9 1 οΙ Τ 17." Phil. 1.106; ἢ: 


ΠΕ XXL’: 


1 PETER 5: 8-14. 


‘BE sober, be vigilant ; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, 
walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist steadfast in the faith, 
knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in 
the world. But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory 
by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, 
strengthen, settle you. To Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. 
By Silvanus, a faithful brother unto you, as I suppose, I have written briefly, ex- 
horting, and testifying that this is the true grace of God wherein ye stand. The 
church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you; and so doth 
Marcus my son. Greet ye one another with a kiss of charity. Peace be with 
you all that are in Christ Jesus. Amen.’ 


In the previous verse the afflicted children of God had been 
encouraged to cast upon Him the whole burden of their anx- 
iety, ‘for,’ says the Apostle, ‘He careth for you. But this 
assurance must not tempt them to be careless about them- 
selves. Here we are taught, as always in Scripture, that the 
true tendency and the only legitimate use of Divine grace is 
not to supersede, but to stimulate and give effect to, human 
effort. Mark the sequence: ‘fe careth for you: Be sober, be 
vigilant, or watchful.* It is thus that promise and command 
are everywhere united ; as in that frequent call to Israel of 
old, ‘Go up; for I will deliver them into thine hand; and its 
counterpart in the spiritual conflicts of faith: ‘Work out your 
own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God which 
worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.’ ἡ 


* γρηγορήσατε. Comp. Lect. o2 Thess. p. 306. This verb occurs 23 times in 
the New Testament, and, excepting here and 1 Thess. 5 : 10, (wake,) is always 
in our common version 20 watch. Rev. 3 : 2 has watchful for the participle. 

ἡ Chronra 5 10; Jude. 29. :.25; Phil) 2 : 12) 13. 


Lecture XXIX—Chapter 5 : 8-14. 323 


Twice before had the writer insisted on sobriety, as a condi- 
tion, in the first instance, of a perfect Christian hope, and, in 
the second, of effectual prayer.* He now repeats the warn- 
ing a third time with immediate reference to the exigencies 
of the Christian’s warfare with Satan ; and for the same spe- 
cial reason he here adds to it a summons to watchfulness, the 
foe with whom the Church has to contend being no less assi- 
duous and subtle, than he is malignant and powerful. ‘Ze 
sober, be watchful; because’—but that word is now generally 
omitted; simply then: ‘Be sober, be watchful; your adver- 
sary the devil,t as a roaring§ lion’—continually impelled by 
rage and hunger—‘ walketh about, seeking whom he may de- 
vour. 

We have here an expression of that solemn sense of a great 
reality, which the sacred writers ever manifest in speaking of 
the presence and working of evil spirits. Of these ‘princi- 
palities and powers, the world-rulers of this darkness,’|] the 
chief is he who in Scripture is commonly distinguished by 
the name of the Devil—originally a Greek word meaning an 
accuser, or by that of Satan—a Hebrew word, meaning an 
adversary; though the former is used by the Seventy for the 
latter.** He is also twice called the Tempter.tt All these 


* See pp. 64 and 277. 

{ The ὅτι, bracketed by Hahn and Bloomfield, is. cancelled by other recent 
editors on the authority of Sin.’ A, B, and many cursive MSS. It is found, how- 
ever, in the old versions, Syriac, Vulgate, etc. 

t ὁ ἀντίδικος ὑμῶν διάβολος. Middleton: ‘I believe the translation should in 
strictness be, ‘‘ Your opposing evil spirit,” as if ἀντίδικος had been an adjective ;’ 
and this construction is followed by Hensler, (in his version ; for the commentary 
makes dvrid. a substantive and διάβ. an adjective, = Wakefield your slanderous 
adversary, ) Trollope, Bloomfield. With the last Peile agrees in claiming the 
article for d:¢@., but would translate, the Devil, your adversary ; and the same 
arrangement appears in several French versions and Martini. ‘Comp. Tit. 3 : 4, 
Greek and English. There can be no doubt that ordinary Greek grammar would 
justify some such alteration of our common version; but the New Testament 
usage does by no means require it ; ἀντίδ, being always elsewhere a substantive, 
(Matt. 5 : 25; Luke 12:58; 18: 3,) and διάβολος, as a proper name, wanting 
the article in Acts 13 : 10; Rev. 20: 2. 

ὃ Ggvouevoc—in the New Testament only here. 

|| Eph. 6 : 12, (τοὺς κοσμοκράτορας τοῦ σκότους τούτου,) Rev. 20 : 2. 

+27 Chron. 21: 15 Joby ΟΣ 2; 211, ΕΞ. Τοῦ 0: Zeeks Ὁ : Ἢ 2: 

tt Matt. 4:3; 1 Thess. 3: 5. 


324 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


names are significant of his spirit and relations to the human 
race, and to the Church of the Redeemer. Wholly evil him- 
self, and choosing evil for his good, he strives unrelentingly 
to involve others in his own sin and ruin. He worketh in the 
children of disobedience, leading them captive at his will, and 
shutting out, if possible, from their minds every ray of saving 
truth. Or, where the light of life has shined, his aim is still 
to quench it by the suggestions of unbelief, or in the storms 
of persecution. * 

It is especially in regard to this last form of his operation 
that the writer seeks here to put his brethren on their guard 
against Satan’s devices, (2 Cor. 2:11.) In that age the devil 
‘had great wrath.’ The Babe of Bethlehem, having gloriously 
foiled every assault alike of his guile and his fury, had gone 
up far beyond his reach, and now he turned to seek his re- 
venge on the bereaved and apparently defenceless disciples. 
Having, as in the days of Job, the range of the whole earth, 
his ‘mountain of prey,’ (Ps. 76: 4,) he ‘walked about, as a 
roaring lion’—restless and bloodthirsty— seeking whom he 
might devour, literally drink down, or, as we rather say, drink 
or swallow wp.t Busily plying all the enginery of hell, he 
entered likewise into the Sanhedrim and the synagogue—into 
the temples of the heathen, and the schools of philosophy, 
and the palace of Czesar—and everywhere mustered to his 
aid the resources of earthly empire. What hope, then, was 
there left for the feeble ‘ flock of God’ (v. 2)? 

‘Be sober, be watchful, says Peter ; sober in the use of, and 
in your expectations from, this present world ; watchful, lest 
from the actual severities of your lot ‘Satan should get an 
advantage of you, t by agitating your minds with fear, and 
doubt, and distrust of your heavenly Guardian, and thus en- 
snare you into the concealment or abandonment of your 
Christian profession. 


* Eph. 2:2; 2 Tim. 2: 26; Matt. 13:19; 2 Cor.4:4; 1 Thess. 3:5; Rev. 
12:12, etc. Comp. Lect. on Thess. pp. 155-6, 161, 177. 

ἵ τίνα καταπίῃ, (Lachmann reads τινὰ καταπιεῖν, [B, J, Sin.2—Sin.? τινὰ 
καταπῖν,] to devour some one.) The word occurs in Matt. 23 : 24; 1 Cor. 15 : 54; 
2 Coni2ce7. 5A eb, It: 29; Rev. 12 : 16. 

da2\Corni2 sane 


Lecture XXITX —Chapier 5 : 8-14. 325 


Their own best efforts, however, they must remember, de- 
pended for their validity and success in so great a contest on 
the firmness and stability which faith alone can give. It 
is therefore added, ‘ Whom resist steadfast in the faith, the 
principle of faith—that faith of God’s elect, which is itself the 
victory that overcometh the world—faith in God and in Christ, 
and in the glorious Gospel, and in the things unseen and 
eternal which that Gospel reveals. Well does Satan know, 
in all his attempts upon the Church, where lies ‘the glory of 
her strength,’ and that, whatever partial triumphs he may 
seem to win, he cannot really prevail against her, or against 
the humblest soul within her pale, except by subverting this 
‘pillar and ground’ of her confidence. Indirect and circui- 
tous as his approaches may be, and for the most part are, it is 
still faith that he ultimately aims at, and, thanks to the secret 
supply of Christ’s inexhaustible grace, it is faith also by which 
he is continually baffled. With the shield of faith, though 
with that alone, the Christian is able to quench all the fiery 
darts of the wicked, and the promise is made good which we 
find in that section of James’s Epistle, (4 : 6-10,) which has so 
much in common with the present context: ‘ Resist the devil, 
and he will flee from you.’ * 

That we have rightly understood our Apostle here, as re- 
garding chiefly the spiritual perils to which his brethren were 
exposed from their grievous outward trials, is clear from the 
latter half of the verse: ‘#xowing’—and the consideration 
may well help to steady faith in bearing the cross—‘ ‘that 
the same sufferings are being accomplished, that is, are in the 
process of accomplishment, ‘for, or ‘on, your brotherhood in 
the world” + It was atime of general trial for the people of 


* Tit. r:1; 1John5:4; Ps.89:17; 1 Tim. 3 : 15; Luke 22 : 31-2; 1 Thess. 
3:5, (comp. Lectures, εἴς.» p. 178 ;) Eph. 6: 16. Comp. also p. 32. 

{ τὰ αὐτὰ τῶν παϑημάτων (the phrase is peculiar and perhaps without example ; 
somewhat as if we should say: ¢he samenesses of the sufferings. πάϑημα is so ren- 
dered ch. 1 : 11; 4: 13; and generally elsewhere) τῇ ἐν (Sin. inserts τῷ) κόσμῳ 
ὑμῶν ἀδελφότητι (as in ch, 2 : 17) ἐπιτελξῖσϑαι, (in the New Testament only here.) 
The primary and most obvious meaning of the verb yields a better sense than 
any other of the numerous interpretations it has here received, such as, occur, be- 
Fall, (Syriac, Vulgate, Luther, Trollope, etc. ;) ave suffered, undergone, (Beausobre 
and L’Enfant, Martini, Carpzov, Wahl, Robinson, etc. ;) ave discharged as a debt, 


- 


326 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


God. Wherever Christians were found, they were either al- 
ready involved in, or-manifestly threatened by, the very same 
fight of afflictions. As the occasion of this universal suffer- 
ing was the same, to wit, their loyalty to the one Lord and 
Saviour Jesus Christ, so likewise was the source of it, in the 
hatred borne to them for Christ’s sake by the world, and the 
world’s god. This being the case throughout the length and 
breadth of the empire, and their brethren everywhere finding 
themselves sustained under the trial, there was the less reason 
why the scattered sojourners of Asia Minor should be sur- 
prised or offended, because they fared even as others. The 
true ground of alarm would have been, that they fared differ- 
ently. Moreover, the world-wide brotherhood having an ab- 
solute corporate oneness, the sufferings of the several mem- 
bers were really a common stock. The believers of one coun- 
try suffered, not apart, nor in their own persons only, but with 
and in their brethren elsewhere ; and reciprocally these breth- 
ren suffered with and in them. What Paul asserted of him- 
self in relation to Christ (Col. 1 : 24) is true of all Christians 
in relation to one another: they fill up, each in his own flesh, 
that which is behind of the affliction of all. And for all par- 
ties there is strength and consolation in the thought. ‘It is,’ 
says Calvin, ‘a perilous temptation of Satan, when he seeks to 
sever us from the body of Christ. We have heard in what* 
way he tried to beat down the spirit of Job, (5 : 1:) Look to 
the saints, whether any one of them ever suffered such things. 
Here, on the contrary, we are admonished by the Apostle, 
. that nothing happens to us, but what may be seen in the other 
members of the Church. By no means are we to refuse part- 
nership, or a like fortune, with all saints..* And to the same 


(Steiger ;) are gone through with as a matter of duty, (Bloomfield ;) are zmposed, 
(Huther.) Of course, the relation expressed by the dative ἀδελφότητι depends a 
good deal on the meaning of ἐπιτελεῖσϑαι. Many take it for a dative of the per- 
sonal agent after a passive verb, ὃν the brotherhood. But this construction is not 
common in the New Testament. The Syriac=Luther zer, Benson, zon, etc. 

* © Periculose nos tentat Satan, quum a Christi corpore nos separat. Audivi- 
mus qualiter animum Job percellere conatus sit, Respice ad sanctos, an ullus 
eorum tale aliquid passus sit. ἘΞ converso hic Apostolus nos monet, nihil nobis 
accidere, quod non in reliquis Ecclesiz membris cernamus. Porro minime recu- 
sanda nobis est cum sanctis omnibus societas, vel similis conditio.’ 


Lecture XXIX—Chapter 5 : 8-14. 227 


purpose a Roman Catholic divine writes thus: ‘The round 
of the Church’s sufferings and patience is made up of the 
sufferings and patience of individual believers, her children 
and members ; and therefore should every believer feel him- 
self emboldened to suffering by the thought, that he is thus 
completing and perfecting, not his own crown merely, but that 
also of the whole Church.’ * 

And the phrase suggests still another ground of consola- 
tion. These sufferings ‘are being accomplished” They shall 
not last forever. The sum of them is fixed, and they have an 
appointed end. How large a proportion of the whole has 
been exhausted by these eighteen centuries of conflict and 
sorrow! And now every pang of the Church—every tear of 
the obscurest of her children—is so much taken from what 
still remains. 


To the various exhortations of this section, and, as we may 
say, of the whole Epistle, is then added prayer for the Divine 
blessing, or perhaps rather, as most think, an authoritative 
assurance of the same. For the 10th verse, as now generally 
read, might be rendered thus: ‘ &uzt’—to conclude ; and for 
your encouragement in the strenuous performance of every 
duty, however arduous, and in the patient endurance of every 
trial, however painful—‘ the God of all grace, who, in the day 
of conversion, ‘calledt us unto His eternal glory int Christ 
Fesus, after we have suffered a while’—or, who called you 
unto Hrs eternal glory in Christ Fesus, after ye have suffered a 
ewhileS$—‘ will himself perfect you, establish, strengthen, settle. || 


* Corn. a Lapide : ‘ Perficitur enim cyclus passionum et patientiz Ecclesiz ex 
passionibus et patientia singulorum fidelium, ejus filiorum et membrorum, ac 
proinde quisque fidelis ad passionem animare se debet, cogitando se non tantum 
suam, sed et totius Ecclesiz coronam adimplere et perficere.’ 

+ ὁ xadécac—as inch. 1:15. See p. 67. t ἐν. 

§ For ἡμᾶς, Beza, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford, with the approval of De 
Wette, Huther, Wiesinger, Brown, etc., read ὑμᾶς, (Sin. A, B, G,) and on this 
-pronoun, whichever reading is adopted, παϑόντας depends. It may be noted 
that the Syriac employs pronouns of the first person throughout, and that Sin- 
omits Ἰησοῦ." 

|| The reading καταρτίσει, (Sin. A, B, Vulgate,) marked as of very great value 
by Griesbach, is adopted by Bengel and the later editors generally, though not, 
as Bloomfield supposes, by Scholz. The latter, however, concurs with the rest 


328 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


He ‘will perfect you, so that no defect may be left behind* 
—‘ establish, so that nothing may shake yout—‘ strengthen, 
that ye may overcome every opposing force {—‘ se¢t/e’ on the 
foundation of the Lord which standeth sure for ever. ‘An 
address,’ says Bengel, worthy of Peder,’ (the Rock.) ‘He is 
strengthening his brethren.’ || The multiplication of these 
emphatic words, to express the one general idea of our sanc- 
tification, denotes not merely the difficulty of the work and 
our need of God’s special grace,** but the thoroughness also 
of the result. It is God’s work, and His work is perfect, 
(Deut. 32:4.) He ‘ Mimself’++ will do it, through the disci- 
pline of His providence, the instrumentality of His word, and 
the ordinances of His Church, His own grace rendering these 
means effectual unto salvation. The work is one eminently 
appropriate to His name and nature, as well as to the relation 
which He sustains to His people. He is ‘the God of all 
gvace. Numerous as are the streams, they all flow from His 
infinite fulness. The Holy Spirit Himself—‘the Spirit of 
grace ’—our Sanctifier and Comforter—proceedeth from the 
Father.t{{ Great is the grace already shown to those who were 
children of condemnation and heirs of wrath, in ‘calling them 
unto God’s eternal glory in Christ Fesus. As God, the Caller, 
is in Christ, so it is into the like fellowship that we are called ; 
and only as we too are thus in Christ, and by virtue of our 
union with Him, are we called unto God’s eternal glory. Oh! 
how blessed are they, and how secure in their blessedness, 
whose eternal life is identified with God’s eternal glory! He 
stands committed to their cause. The very call is itself a 
pledge that the inheritance shall be theirs, and that He will 


in reading στηρίξει, σϑενώσει, in the New Testament only here,) ϑεμελιώσει 
(Sin., etc.) The last word is cancelled by Lachmann on the authority of A, B, 
Syriac and Vulgate. 
* Bengel : ‘ne remaneat in vobis defectus.’ 
t Id.: ‘ne quid vos labefactet.’ 
¢ Id. : ‘ut superetis vim omnem adversam.’ 
§ 2 Tim. 2 : 19, (ὁ μέντοι στερεὸς ϑεμέλιος κτλ.) 
|| ‘Digna Petro oratio. Confirmat fratres suos.’ ** Calvin. 
tt αὐτός. Comp. 1 Thess. 3: 11 and 5 : 23. 
tt Heb. 10: 29; John 15 : 26. 


Lecture XXTX —Chapter 5 : 8-14. 329 


make them meet for its possession. ‘Faithful is He that 
calleth you, who also will do it.’* 

All this marvellous grace, however, we are gently reminded, 
does not exclude present suffering: ‘after ye have suffered a 
while—a little while. + This clause our translators connect 
with the latter half of the verse, which, since the suffering 
lasts all through this life, must then be understood as describ- 
ing the final act of grace, whereby believers are made perfect 
in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory.t But there 
is little doubt that the true connection is, according to the now 
prevailing construction, with what precedes. God ‘called you 
unto Fis eternal glory, after ye have suffered a little while. 
The suffering is first, and then comes the glory ; and both— 
the one no less than the other—were distinctly regarded in 
your ‘high calling of God in Christ Jesus.’§ Let not, then, 
your faith and hope be at all disconcerted by that, which is in 
no degree a derangement of the divine plan, and which, so far 
from frustrating, must rather hasten the consummation of, the 
purposes of grace.|| 

No sooner does the Apostle again reach this point, whence 
is seen in the perspective of eternity the glorious fruit of the 
Divine love, and of the Church’s present trial, than again He 
bursts forth into doxology : ‘ Zo Him the glory and the power’ 
—the glory of the great result, and the power that surely 
brings it to pass—‘ for ever and ever’—unto the ages of the ages. 
‘ Amen.’ ** 

And with this the body of the Epistle may be said to ter- 
minate ; what follows being made up, besides a statement of 


ἈΠῚ Thess, τὶ : 2A)s) 2) Come 5 1: Feb, fs) 1 3 5 Con, ἡ: 22, ete. 

+ dAtyov—as in ch. 1:6. See p. 42. 

¢ Of the many who have construed παϑόντας with the ὑμᾶς following, some 
(Syriac, Luther, Beausobre,and L’Enfant, Semler, etc.) give it the force of a pre- 
sent,=while you are suffering. But this will not do. And no less arbitrary is 
Benson’s assumption, that these brethren ‘were to be delivered from their suffer- 
ings before death.’ 

§ Phil. 3: 14. 

|| On this verse comp. Lect. on Thess. pp. 199-201 and 396-402. 

** αὐτῷ ἡ δόξα, καὶ TO κράτος εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων. ἀμήν. The words 7: 
δόξα xai are cancelled by Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford, (A, B, and the Amia- 


tine Vulgate.) Tischendorf also cancels τῶν αἰώνων, after B—Comp. ch. 4:11,, - 


(p. 285.) 


330 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


the design and purport of the Epistle itself, of certain circum- 
stantial notices, and’ the customary apostolic greetings and 
benediction. 


‘ [have written briefly, or in few words,* says Peter, ‘ex- 
horting’ you to perseverance in your Christian course, and 
comforting } you in your many sorrows, ‘azd’ this chiefly by 
‘ testifying’—solemnly attesting, t as an Apostle of Christ— 
‘that this 15 the true grace of God’—this, namely, zxzto which - 
you entered at the beginning, and ‘ wherein ye’ now ‘ stand’ § 
These churches, as we have had occasion to remark more 
than once, || were probably founded, not by Peter, but by 
Paul, or by disciples of Paul. For the faith which they then 
embraced they had since suffered and were still suffering 
much, and were likely to suffer more, and there was danger 
that the heart of the people might be discouraged. It was 
therefore important that another Apostle, and one so eminent 
as Peter, should come forward at this late period to rein- 
vigorate their confidence, by certifying that the doctrine they 
Thad formerly been taught, and the hopes which it had led 
‘them to cherish, were indeed of God, and the common por- 
tion of His children. 

Some, however, read the last word so as to make it a gen- 
eral exhortation to steadfastness ; and then the whole would 
take this turn: ‘ Zzs, of which I have been writing, ‘zs the 
true grace of God, in which’ grace see that ye ‘ stand. ** 

But why should Peter have written, or say that he had 
written, ‘2 few words’? Not, as has been suggested, from 


* δὶ ὀλίγων. Comp. Eph. 3 : 3, ἐν ὀλίγῳ, and Heb. 13 : 22, διὰ βραχέων. 

Ἷ παρακαλῶν. 

t émtuaptupdv—in the New Testament only here., Bengel, Scott, and Peile, 
explain the ἐπί as cumulative, Peter intending to add his testimony to that of the 
earlier teachers ; Macknight and Clarke make it intensive, strongly, earnestly ; 
Wiesinger and Alford think it simply marks the direction of the testimony. 

§ εἰς ἣν ἑστήκατε, (Sin. A, B: στῆτε, which Lachmann edits.) Comp. Rom. 
5 :2, ἐν ἡ ἑστήκαμεν. Here, by a not uncommon breviloquence, εἰς ἥν combines 
the ideas of entrance into, and abiding in. Comp. Lect. on Thess. p. 512, and 
Winer, pp. 368, etc. Sin.’ inserts καί before ταύτην. 

|| See pp. 24, 52, 88. 

** στῆτε, (A, B.) So Lachmann, Huther, Brown, Alford. 


Lecture X XIX —Chapter 5 : 8-14. 331 


modesty,* nor lest the reading of a longer letter might prove 
irksome, ἡ nor because the letter would appear a short one to 
the readers, as coming from one of their best friends, and on 
the weightiest subject,{ but simply because, from the very 
nature of the case as here presented, many words were not 
needed. It is true, the letter is rather longer than most. 
Still the words were few, when compared with the importance 
of the matter, and the strong interest felt by the writer in his 
’ brethren’s welfare. Moreover, what might seem to be want- 
ing in this respect would be supplied by the messenger by 
whom the letter was sent. ὃ | 

Observe, also, how agreeable to the main purpose of the let- 
ter, as just explained, was the selection of that messenger. 
‘ By Silvanus’—so he is called in the Epistles, but in the Acts 
Silas. For these are but two forms of one name, and it is 
natural to suppose that they stand for one and the same per- 
son. If so, this was no other than the prophet, and leading 
man in the church of Jerusalem, whom Paul chose for his 
companion and fellow-laborer, and of whom he makes honor- 
able mention in three of his Epistles. || Under what circum- 
stances, or on what errand, he had now been with Peter, we 
are not told. But it would appear that his own special field 
of ministry lay in that same Asia Minor, through which he 
had travelled with the Apostle of the Gentiles: ‘a faithful 
brother unto you, or, as the words stand in the original, ‘ Zo you 
the faithful brother, ** all that is implied in such a designation. 
Nor by adding the words, ‘as 7 suppose, or rather, as 7 reckon, 
conclude, judge,t} does Peter mean to guard himself, or to ex- 


* Estius: ‘modestiz causa,’ { Horneius: ‘ne molestum sit legere.’ 
i Bez. 
§ For though διὰ Σιλ. ἔγραψα could mean that Peter had used Silvanus as his 
amanuensis, the other interpretation is the more probable. 
“if Acts 15°: 22,32, 40; Thess. 1: 1; 2 Thess. 1:1; 2:Cor. 1 * ro, 
** ὑμῖν τοῦ πιστοῦ ἀδελφοῦ. Comp. Col. 1: 1, Τιμόϑεος ὁ ddeAdde.—Burton 
and Peile explain ὑμῖν as a dative of judgment,=whom you account; and very 
many, from the Syriac and Vulgate to Alford, connect it with ἔγραψα. But the 
construction of our common version is quite defensible. Alford’s objection, that 
it ‘is harsh, and leaves ἔγραψα without any object of address,’ is sufficiently ob- 
viated by the position of éypaxabet ween διὰ EcAovavod and the explanatory par- 
ticiples.—Lachmann cancels the τοῦ. 
tt ὡς λογίζομαι. Comp. Rom, 3 : 28; 6:11; 8:18, etc, Camerarius,: ‘non 


332 Lectures on the First Epistle of Peter. 


press the slightest doubt of the justness of the commenda- 
tion. He merely intimates that what was, of course, already 
well known to them had pressed itself also on his own convic- 
tion, from all that he had now seen of Silvanus. Instead, 
therefore, of this being a troublesome addition,* as it has 
been called, it was really no small matter for Silvanus, or. for 
those to whom he ministered, that his Christian character and 
special relation to them, should receive the emphatic indorse- 
ment of so great an Apostle. ἡ 


The 13th verse, you will notice, has an important word sup- 
plied. The Greek is something like this : ‘She that is co-elect 
in Babylon saluteth you ;’ that is, say some, Peter’s own wife, ὃ 
or some other distinguished Christian lady, || whose name, it 
has even been fancied, may have been the word that answers 
to our co-elect, Syneclecte.** But it is difficult on this hypothe- 
sis to conceive why the words, ‘that ἐς zx Babylon, should 
have entered into the designation. There is, in fact, no suffi- 
cient reason for quitting the common view, which appears, in- 
deed, in the oldest manuscript, [7 as well as in the oldest ver- 
sions, that to the scattered sojourners, whom in the inscrip- 
tion of the Epistle he had addressed as ‘elect,’ he now at the 
close of it sends the salutation of some ‘co-e/ect’ church, 


dubitationem significat sed persuasionem.’ This clause is connected with δι᾽ 
ὀλίγων by the Syriac and Vulgate, Beza, Huther, and a few others ; but with no 
advantage to the sense. Erasmus, Grotius, Pott, etc., assume that Peter alludes 
to a former letter sent, he thinks=if he remembers rightly (!), by Silvanus. But of 
the existence of any such letter, as the idiomatic, epistolary ἔγραψα is no proof 
at all, (comp. Philem. 19, 21,) so neither is there the slightest indication else- 
where ; and see 2 Pet. 3: 1 tothe contrary. Finally, Wetstein and Moldenhawer 
connect with ἔγραψα ; the former, thus: ‘I have written as I think—that is my 
own deliberate conviction ;’ the latter, thus : ‘I have written what I suppose your 
circumstances require ;’ and of these two views one is at least more tolerable 
than the other. 

* Huther: ‘ein storender Zusatz.’ 

+ Calvin: ‘ tanti apostoli.’ 

t 7 ἐν Βαβυλῶνι συνεκλεκτή, (the last word is found nowhere else.) 

§ Mill, Bengel, Pott, Meyer, Mayerhoff, Jachmann, Alford. 

|| Wall, Heumann, Schirmer. : 
** Wolf throws this out as a possible conjecture, without at all adopting it, as 
Pott and Augusti say he does ; for he insists on the common interpretation. 

it The Codex Sinaiticus. 


’ 


ee 


Lecture XXIX—Chapter καὶ : 8-14. 333 


within whose bounds he was residing at the time. And what 
church was that? ‘ She that ts in Babylon. 

Here, however, we encounter a still greater diversity of 

opinion. The Romans had a military station in Egypt, that 
was called Babylon, and that has been supposed to be the 
place here mentioned.* Others think that the name is used 
mystically for Jerusalem, ἡ or Rome. The last is a very old 
‘opinion, t and is held likewise by many moderns, including 
nearly all Roman Catholic writers, who would thus succeed, 
though under a bad name, in getting New Testament evi- 
dence of Peter's connection with the imperial city. But cer- 
tainly this apocalyptic disguise does not accord well with the 
simple tone of the context ; and so here again I am disposed 
to acquiesce in what is now the more common view, that the 
place from which our Epistle was written was the Assyrian 
Babylon, which, though greatly reduced from its ancient ex- 
tent and splendor, still existed in the apostolic age. There, 
and throughout those eastern regions, Jews abounded ; and 
nothing is more likely, though we have no other record of the 
fact, than that the Apostle of the circumcision, in ‘ passing 
throughout all quarters,’ § travelled as far as the Euphrates. 
- To the salutation of the church is added that of an emi- 
nent minister now with Peter: ‘axzd Marcus, my son. Such, 
indeed, as find in the beginning of the verse a reference to 
the Apostle’s wife, naturally enough take this to have been 
their son. Otherwise the agreement is general, that Peter calls 
him his son merely as an expression of his affection, or per- 
haps also because, as his spiritual father, he had ‘begotten 
him through the Gospel, || and that this was really the famous 
John Mark, at the house of whose mother Peter seems to have 
been a frequent visitor, ** and of whom ecclesiastical tradition 
asserts that, in the composition of the second Gospel, he acted 
as Peter’s interpreter or secretary. TT 


Finally, the Apostle invites all to whom he wrote, when the 


* Pearson, Calov, Clericus, etc. {+ Capellus, Spanheim, Semler, etc. 
1 Eusebius quotes for it Papias and the Alexandrian Clement. 
§ Acts 9 : 32. ΠῚ Cor. 4:15. FAUACtS, ΣΖ) 5.12: 


Tt ἑρμηνευτὴς Πέτρου. 


334 Lectures on the Furst Epistle of Peter. 


letter should be received and read among them, to ‘ salute one 
another, according to the oriental custom, adopted with a 
deeper and holier significance into the usages of the early 
Church, “γι a kiss of love, * that unfeigned, fervent, brotherly 
love, which again and again he has exhorted them to cherish. 

And then comes the apostolic blessing, ‘Peace to you all 
who are in Christ Fesus,;~ and so are one with the once 
suffering and now glorified Redeemer: ‘ Peace to you all’—' 
the very peace which He bequeathed to the disciples at His 
death, and sealed to them after His resurrection, when ‘He 
breathed on them, and saith unto them: Receive ye the Holy 
Ghost.’+ Solemn guarantee of the Church’s inviolable life 
and present safety amid all her tribulations, and of her ulti- 
mate and eternal repose! ‘Amen.’§ 


* ἀσπάσεσϑε (as in the previous verse) ἀλλήλους ἐν φιλήματι dyamno—the 
φίλημα ἅγιον of other Epistles, (Rom. 16: 16; 1 Cor. 16: 20; 2 Cor. 13: 12; 
1 Thess. 5 : 26; comp. Lectures, etc., pp. 403-4.) 

t ἐιρήνη ὑμῖν πᾶσι τοῖς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ ~The last word is cancelled by Lach- 
mann, Tischendorf, Alford, (A, B. Syriac.) 

t John 14:27; 20:22. Comp. Lect. on Thess. pp. 583-4- 

§ The editors generally omit the ἀμήν, though it appears in the Syriac, and in 
the Vulgate as commonly printed, (not the Cod, Amiatinus. ) 


THE 


FarsT..|PISTLE: OF) “PETER 


TRANSLATED. 





THE. FIRST EPISTLE: OF “PETER. 


I.. PETER, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the elect sojour- 
ners of the dispersion of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, 
and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the 
Father, through* sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedi- 
ence and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus.Christ: Grace 
unto you, and peace, be multiplied. 

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, who according to His great mercy begat us again 
unto a living hope, through the resurrection of Jesus 
Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible, 
and undefiled, and unfading, reserved in the heavens for 
you, who in the power of God are guarded through faith 
unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time: 
wherein ye exult, though now for a little while, if need be, 
ye are grieved throught manifold temptations,t that the 
proof of your faith, de¢z¢§ much more precious than of 
gold || that perisheth, yet is proved by fire, may be found 
unto praise, and honor, and glory, at** the revelation of 
Jesus Christ ; whom, not knowing,ff ye love ; in whom, 
though now ye see //zm not, yet believing, ye exult with 
joy unspeakable and glorified, receiving the end of your 
faith, the salvation of your souls. Concerning which sal- 
vation prophets diligently inquired and searched, who 


prophesied concerning the grace for you; searching for 11 


* Gr. 272. + Gr. 7m. t Or, trials. 


§ Some thus: may be found much more precious. || Or, as many, thanx gold. 
ΘῈ Gr, 27, +t Or, as some read, having not seen. 


338 The First Epistle of Peter. 


12 


13 


14 


15 


16 
17 


18 


19 


20 
21 


23 


24 


what, or what manner of, time the Spirit of Christ in them 
was showing azd testifying beforehand the sufferings a- 
pointed for Christ, and the glories after these : unto whom 
it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us* 
they were ministering those things, which have now been 
reported unto you by those who preached the Gospel unto 
you in} the Holy Spirit sent from heaven; into which 
things angels long to gaze. 


Wherefore, girding up the loins of your mind, being 
sober, have your hope perfectly set on { the grace coming ὃ 
to you at || the revelation of Jesus Christ. As children of 
obedience, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts 
in your ignorance, but according to the Holy One, who 
called you, be ye yourselves also holy in all your walk: 
because it is written: Be ye holy, for Iam holy. And if 
ye call Him Father,** who without respect of persons 
judgeth according to every one’s work, walk, during the 
time of your sojourning, in fear: knowing that not with 
corruptible things, silver or gold, were ye redeemed from 
your vain walk handed down from your fathers, but with 
the precious blood, as of a lamb faultless and spotless, of 
Christ ; foreknown, indeed, before the foundation of the 
world, but manifested in the last times for you, ‘who 
through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the 
dead, and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope 
should be in God. 

Having purified your souls in the obedience of the truth 
through the Spirit}? unto brotherly kindness unfeigned, 
out of a pure heart love one another intensely; having 
been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incor- 
ruptible, through the word of God, which liveth and 
abideth for ever.t{ For all flesh zs as grass, and all its 
glory as the flower of grass. Withered is the grass, and 


* Some read yov. + Some read dy. t Gr. perfectly hope on. 
§ Gr. being brought. || Gr. 272. 

** Or, as many, call on Him as Father. 

tt Some omit the words, through the Spirit. 

tt Or, as many read, Goa’s living and abiding word. 


The First Epistle of Peter. 339 


its flower is fallen off; but the word of the Lord: abideth 25 


for ever. Now, this is the word which in the Gospel was 
preached unto you. } 

11. Laying aside, therefore, all malice, and all guile, and 
hypocrisies, and envyings, and all evil-speakings, as new- 
born babes, earnestly desire the rational,* guileless 7 milk, 
that by it ye may grow unto salvation; if indeed ye have 
tasted that the Lord zs kind. Coming to whon, the living 
Stone, by men, indeed, rejected, but with God elect, pre- 
cious,t ye yourselves also, as living stones, are§$ builded 
a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual 
sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Be- 
cause it is contained in the Scripture: Behold, I lay in 
Zion a chief-corner stone, elect, precious ;t and he that 
believeth on it|| shall in no wise be ashamed. For you, 
then zs the preciousness,** who believe ; but for such as 
disobey, the stone which the builders rejected, the same 
hath become the head of the corner, and a stone of stum- 
bling, and a rock of offence ; who stumble, disobeying the 
word : +} whereunto they were also appointed. But ye ave 
an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people 
for a possession ; that ye may publish the excellencies ἐξ 
of Him who called you out of darkness into His wondrous 
light ; zo once were not a people, but now ave the people 
of God; who had not received mercy, but now have re- 
ceived mercy. 


Beloved, I exhort you, as foreigners and sojourners, to 
abstain §§ from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul ; 
having your behavior good among the Gentiles, that, 
wherein they speak against you, as evil-doers, they may, 
from the good works which they behold, ||| glorify God in 
the day of visitation. 


ios) 


IO 


Jide 


12 


* Or, of the word. t Many, unadulterated, t Or, honored. 
§ Or, be ye. \| Or, “7 η:. ** Or, honor. 
tt Or, as many, stumbled at the word, disob. tt Or, virtues. 


§§ Or, as some read, abstain. 1] Gr. having beheld then. 


340 The First Epistle of Peter. 


13 


14 
15 


16 


17 


18 


we 
20 


ῳ 


Submit* yourselves, therefore, to every human institu- 
tion, for the Lord’s sake; whether to the king, as su- 
preme; or to governors, as sent by Him for the punish- 
ment of evil-doers, but for the praise of well-doers. For 
thus is the will of God, that doing well ye silence the ig- 
norance of foolish men; as free, and not as having that ἡ 
freedom for a covering of wickedness, but as servants of 
God. Honor all mex, love the brotherhood ; fear God ; 
honor the king. 

Ye servants, submit yourselves, in all fear, to your mas- 
ters, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the per- 
verse: for this zs an acceptable thing, ¢ if for conscience 
toward God one endureth griefs, suffering unjustly. For 
what credit zs z¢, if, when ye do wrong and are buffeted, 
ye shall bear z¢ patiently? but if, when ye do well and 
suffer, ye shall bear z¢ patiently, this is an acceptable thing ¢ 
with Ged. For unto this were ye called: because Christ 
also suffered for us, leaving you§ an example, that ye should 
follow His footsteps: who did no sin, neither was guile 
found in His mouth: who, when reviled, reviled not again ; 
when suffering, threatened not ; but committed [/zmse/f || 
to Him that judgeth righteously: who Himself bare our 
sins in His own body upon ** the tree,ff that, dying to, sins, 
we might live to righteousness ; by whose stripes ye were 
healed. For ye were as sheep going astray ; but have now 
returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. 

III. Likewise, ye wives, submit 1} yourselves to your 
own husbands ; that, even if some disobey the word, they 
may without word be won by the behavior of the wives ; 
beholding your chaste behavior jozzed with §§ fear ; whose 
be, not the outward adorning of plaiting of hair, and wear- 
ing of gold, or putting on of garments, but the hidden man 
of the heart, in the incorruptibleness of the meek and quiet 
spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. For 


* Gr. submitting. t Gr. the. { Gr. grace. 
§ Many read: suffered for you, leaving you; some: suffered for us, leaving us. 
|| Others supply 7/, or 715 cazse, or His wrongs, or His wrong-doers. 

** Many thus: dove up our sins in His own body to, etc. 

tt Gr. wood, or timber. tt Gr. submitting. §§ Gr. 77. 


The First Epistle of Peter. 


thus of old did the holy women also, who hoped in* God, 
adorn themselves, submitting themselves to their own hus- 
bands: as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: of 
whom ye are become children, while doing well, and not 
fearing any Τ terror. 

Ye husbands, likewise, dwell $ according to knowledge 
with the female vessel as the weaker, yielding ¢Zem honor, 
as being also heirs with σης ὃ of the grace of life; that 
your prayers be not hindered. || 

But finally, de all likeminded, sympathizing, brotherly,** 
tender-hearted, humble-minded ; {+ not rendering evil for 
evil, or railing for railing ; but, on the contrary, blessing ; 
knowing that unto this ff ye were called, that ye should in- 
herit blessing. For he that will love life, and see good 
days, let him restrain his tongue from evil, and his lips 
from speaking guile; let him turn away from evil, and do 


341 


Wa 


good ; let him seek peace, and pursue it. For the eyes of 12 


the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears unto their 
prayer; but the face of the Lord zs upon those who do 
evil things. And who Zs he that shall do evil to you, if ye 
be imitators of that which is good?§§$ But if even ye 
should suffer for righteousness’ sake, blessed ave ye. But 
fear not their fear, neither be troubled; but sanctify the 
Lord God |||| in your hearts. Yet d¢ ready always for an 
answer to every one that asketh of you an account of the 
hope that is in you, with *** meekness and fear : having a 
good conscience; that, wherein they may speak against 
you as evil-doers, they may be ashamed who traduce your 
good behavior in Christ. For z¢ zs better that ye suffer, 
if the will of God should so will, zz doing well than zz do- 
ing evil: because Christ also suffered once on account of 
sins, the Righteous for the unrighteous, that He might 
bring us to God, being put to death, indeed, in the flesh, 
but quickened in the spirit; in which He went and 


* Gr. upon. t Or, with any. t Gr. dwelling. 
§ Some read, hers with you. || Some read, cut off: 
** Gr.=brother-loving. ti Some have read, Aindly-minded. 
tt Some read, because unto this. §§ Some: of Him who ts good. 


(| | Some read, the Lord Christ. *** Some read, but with. 


13 
14. 
15 


16 


ΤΠ; 


18 


19 


342 The First Epistle of Peter. 


20 preached* also to the spirits in prison, which sometime 
disobeyed, when the long-suffering of God waited in the 
days of Noah, while the ark was preparing, in which few— 

21 that is, eight—souls were saved through water ; which in 
a like figure now saveth us also, evex baptism—not the 
putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the stipulation ἡ 
toward God of a good conscience—through the resurrec- 
tion of Jesus Christ; who is on the right hand of God, 
having gone into heaven, angels and authorities and pow- 
ers having been made subject unto Him. 

IV. Christ, then, having suffered for us in Hie flesh, do 

ye also arm yourselves with the same mind: for he that 

2 hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin: so as no 
longer to live§ the remaining time in the flesh to the 
3 lusts of men, but to the willof God. For sufficient for us 
ἧς the past time of life |] to have wrought the will of the 
Gentiles, having walked in lasciviousness, lusts, wine- 
debauches, revels, carouses, and unlawful idolatries : 

4 whereof they think strange, that ye run not with them 
into the same excess** of profligacy, speaking evil of you: 

5 who shall render an account to Him that is ready to judge 

6 the living and the dead. For to this end was the Gospel 
preached also to the dead, that they might be judged, in- 
deed, according to men in the flesh, but should live ac- 
cording to God in the spirit. 

7 But the end of all things is at hand: be prudent, there- 

8 fore, and be sober, in order to ff prayer. $f But above 88 all 
things have|||| your love for one another intense ; for love 

9 shall *** cover a multitude of sins. Ze hospitable to one 

10 another without murmurings. 77 According as each re- 
ceived a gift, minister ἐξ} the same to one another, as good 


* Gr. having gone, He preached. t Others, zzguiring ; or, request. 
¢ Or, thought. Some thus: with this same thought, that, etc. i 
§ Many thus: that he should no longer live. 
|| Some omit the words for ws and of life. 
** Gr. outpouring. Some: mire, sink; others: laxness, softness. 
tt Very many: watch unto. tt Gr. the prayers. §§ Gr. defore. 
||| Gr. having. *** Or, will, Many read, covereth. 
tit Some read, murmuring. ttt Gr. metnistering. 


The First Epistle of Peter. 343 


stewards of the manifold grace of God: if any one speak- 
eth, /et 12 be as the oracles of God; if any one ministereth, 
let it be as of the ability which God supplieth: that in all 
God may be glorified through Jesus Christ ; to whom is the 
glory and the power for ever and ever.* Amen. 

Beloved, think not strange of the burning among you, 
occurring to you for a trial, as if a strange thing were hap- 
pening unto you; but, according as ye share in the suffer- 
ings of Christ, rejoice ; that at 7 the revelation also of His 
glory ye may rejoice, exulting. If ye are reproached for 
the name of Christ, blessed ave ye; for the Spirit of glory, ¢ 
even the .522712 of God, resteth upon you. On their part, 
indeed, He is blasphemed, but on your part He is glori- 
fied. For let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, 
or an evil-doer, or as an intermeddler ; but if as a Chris- 
tian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God on 
this behalf.§ For z¢ zs the time for the judgment to begin 
from the house of God; but if first from us, what shall be 
the end of those who disobey the gospel of God? And 
if the righteous scarcely is saved, where shall the ungodly 
and sinner appear? Wherefore, let those also who suffer 


according to the will of God, commit their souls zo Aim in ~ 


well-doing, as to a faithful Creator. 

V. The elders that are among you I exhort, who am a 
fellow-elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and 
also a partaker of the glory about to be revealed: tend the 
flock which is among you, overseeing z¢ not by constraint, 
but willingly ; nor for base gain, but of a ready mind; 
nor as lording over the heritages, || but becoming patterns 
to ** the flock; and when the chief Shepherd is mani- 
fested, ye shall receive the unfading crown of glory. 

Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto your 
elders ; nay, all submitting 77 to one another, gird on hu- 
mility ; for God resisteth tf the proud, but to the humble 


* Gr. unto the ages of the ages. t Gr. 27. 
+ Some add the words, and of power. § Gr. 7x this particular. 
|| Some : Zots, or portions. ? ** Gr. of. 


II 


17 


18 


19 


tt Some omit the word submitting. tt Gr. arrayeth Himself against. 


344 The First Epistle of Peter. 


6 He giveth grace. Humble yourselves, therefore, under 
the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due 

7 time: casting all your anxiety upon Him, for He careth 
for you. ‘ 

8 Be sober, be watchful; because* your adversary, the 
devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he 

g may devour: whom resist, steadfast in the faith,  know- 
ing that the same sufferings are being accomplished on ¢ 
your brotherhood in the world. 


10 But may the God of all grace, who called us§ unto His 
eternal glory in Christ Jesus, after we|| have suffered a 
little while, Himself perfect you, establish, strengthen, 

11 settle.** To Him the glory and the power for ever and 
ever.f{ Amen. 


12 By Silvanus, to you the faithful brother, as I reckon, I 
have written ἐξ in few qwords, exhorting and attesting that 

13 this is the true grace of God, wherein ye stand. She that 
is co-elect in Babylon saluteth you; and Mark, my son. 

14 Salute one another with a kiss of love. Peace to you all 
who are in Christ Jesus. Amen. 88 


* Most omit the word Jdecazse. t Some read, dy fazth. 
+ Or, for. § Or, as many read, you. || Or, as many, ye. 

δὺς Most read, But the God of all grace... will perfect, etc. 

it Gr. unto the ages of the ages. 

tt Many thus: By Silvanus, the faithful, etc., L have written to you. 

§§ Most omit the word Amez. 


LECTURES 


ON THE 


SECOND EPISTLE OF PETER. 


| we rege ἢ 





INTRODUCTION. 


Tue Second Epistle of Peter seems to have been written 
very soon after the First, and was primarily intended for the 
same parties—the churches, namely, of Asia Minor. As 
both Epistles are expressly directed to the establishment and 
furtherance of the disciples in the faith and holiness of the 
Gospel, so both set out with a glowing description of their 
present high spiritual standing and privileges, as the basis of 
all the subsequent exhortations. In the present case, how- 
ever, these exhortations are more of a general type through- 
out, avoiding altogether such details of civil, social, domestic, 
and ecclesiastical duty as occupy so large a portion of the 
previous communication. And another point of difference 
no less striking is this, that, whereas in the former Epistle 
the writer’s great aim was to strengthen and comfort his 
brethren amidst the sufferings to which they were exposed 
from the misapprehensions and calumnies and violent assaults 
of the world around, he now lifts his voice, as it were for the 
last time, and with the grave earnestness of a dying testi- 
mony, to warn and confirm them against a still worse peril 
from within the Christian communion itself. ἢ 

Already in the apostolic age the parable of the wheat and 
the tares, in which the Lord had foretold the presence and 
continuous growth of evil in His Church, received ample 
illustration in manifold corruptions both of doctrine and life. 
Of these the two teeming sources were, on the one hand, the 
spirit of Jewish legalism and superstition, and, on the other, 
the heathen philosophy, fanaticism, and licentiousness—the 
latter, of course, especially manifesting itself wherever, as in 


348 Introduction. 


Asia Minor, the Gentile element predominated. As early as 
the date of his Epistles to the Thessalonians, the eye of Paul 
discerned working in Christendom the nascent energies of 
that mystery of iniquity, which was to reach at once its 
maturity and its doom in the day of the Lord’s appearing. 
And in several of the later writings of the New Testament— 
of those in particular which have to do more or less directly 
with the very region to which Peter immediately sent his 
letters—as, for example, the Epistles to the Ephesians, Colos- 
sians, and Timothy, the Epistle of Jude, and the Apocalyptic 
Epistles to the seven Churches, as well as that which now 
lies before us, it is by no means difficult to trace rudimentary 
indications and lineaments of what was in the next century 
rapidly developed into the monstrous, shapeless proportions 
of the Gnostic heresy, so called from the pretensions of its 
votaries to the possession of a superior gzoszs or knowledge, 
though it was one which Paul denounced as utterly unworthy 
of the name. (1 Tim. 6: 20.) 

Now, it is curious enough that, for the principal author of 
this widespread and most formidable antagonism to the truth’ 
and purity of the Divine revelation, ecclesiastical tradition 
points steadily to that same Simon Magus whom our Apostle 
so sternly confronted in Samaria; as indeed ‘the blasting 
volleyed thunder’ of our second chapter may well remind us 
of the anathema with which Peter on that occasion smote the 
presumptuous blasphemer. 

But the evil did not die out with those first centuries. 
Some of the more hideous features even of the old Gnosticism 
are reappearing in our own day. And we find, accordingly, 
that still a third characteristic of the present Epistle is the 
precision and reach of its prophetic spirit. As to Paul in 
writing to Timothy, so here to Peter it was clearly revealed, 
that throughout this entire dispensation ‘evil men and se- 
ducers should wax worse and worse, deceiving and being 
deceived,’ (2 Tim. 3 : 13,) till in the last times their folly and 
wickedness should culminate in open mockery of the Church’s 
hope of the coming and kingdom of her Lord. 

In opposition to all which heretical depravity the aged 
Apostle, besides drawing its terrible portrait, and foretelling 


Introduction. 349 


its more terrible overthrow, contents himself with calmly re- 
asserting the truth and certainty of what he had formerly 
taught his brethren on these vital themes, confirmed as that 
had been in his own experience by what he had seen and 
heard on the mount of transfiguration; only for their yet 
greater assurance he refers them also to the concurrent tes- 
timony of Prophets and Apostles, and especially of him to 
whose authority the errorists sometimes affected to appeal, 
the great Apostle of the Gentiles. 

At the last, and now in full, unobstructed view of the ‘ new 
heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness,’ 
the writer summons his fellow-believers to the study of holi- 
ness without which no man shall enter there, and ends by 
turning into exhortation the benediction with which he had 
begun: ‘But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our 
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both now 
and for ever. Amen.’ 


LECTURE I. 


QYPE TELL re 


‘SIMON PETER, a servant and an Apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have 
obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our 
Saviour Jesus Christ: grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the know- 
ledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord.’ 


Wirn the fulness and particularity of a last will and testa- 
ment the writer announces himself by the double name, that 
recalled the two great divisions of his life: ‘Szzon’—or 
according to the Jewish form which he seems here to have 
used, as James also used it in the Council of Jerusalem, Sy- 
meon*— Peter, a servant and an Apostle of Fesus Christ. 

He was ‘a servant of Fesus Christ’ in the same sense in 
which all ministers, and all Christians, are Christ’s servants. 
Not only did he revere the dignity of His person and the 
holiness of His character. Not only did He admire Him as 
the greatest Teacher of moral and spiritual truth that had 
ever appeared amongst men. Not only did he love Him as 
his own personal Friend and Saviour. He at the same time 
called that Saviour ‘Master and Lord.’ The impetuous self- 
' will wherewith he used to ‘gird himself, and walk whither he 
would,’ had long been subdued, and now he gloried only in 
this, that he was ‘not his own, but bought with a price’—the 
bond-servant of One who had died on a cross.f Gladly he 
recognized Christ’s absoluté authority over him, and his own 
obligation to an obedience as absolute. He was ‘a servant of 


* Συμεών, (ΠΡ) Acts 15°: 14. Lachmann alone here edits Σίμων, (B.) 
ἡ John 13 :)13);.21 3 τὸ: 1 Cor. 6: 10, 20. 


Lecture [—Chapter 1 +1, 2. cL! 


Fesus Christ’ in the very sense in which Moses was ‘ the ser- 
vant of God,’ or as Paul and James sometimes prefixed this 
latter designation to their Epistles.* In other words, Peter 
knew that the Master he served was Divine. Like Thomas 
when permitted to behold and handle the sacred person of 
the Redeemer, so Peter too called Jesus ‘ Lord,’ only because 
out of a full and adoring heart he could add, ‘ My God.’ + 

Such being the general relation in which Peter stood to 
Jesus Christ, his other title represents the particular service 
in which he was employed in that relation. He was ‘az 
Apostle of Fesus Christ’—one of those who, having companied 
with the Lord from the beginning, and seen Him after His 
resurrection, were by him endowed with special gifts of the 
Holy Ghost, and sent forth as witnesses of that great victory 
over sin and death to evangelize the nations, and for the 
planting and training of the Church.t It is to be observed, 
however, that, while claiming to be one of these, he does not 
claim the slightest official superiority to his brethren. Peter 
was ‘an Apostle’—certainly one of ‘the very chiefest Apos- 
tles’; § but he was no Pope. 

From ch. 3: I it appears that the letter was intended in 
the first instance for the same parties as those to whom the 
previous Epistle was addressed—the churches, namely, of the 
Lesser Asia. Here, however, they are designated, not accord- 
ing to the places of their residence, but according to the 
gracious attainment that was common to them with their 
brethren throughout the world. In the strictest sense of the 
word, therefore, the present is a Catholic Epistle—one not 
designed, even by the writer, to meet any merely local or 
temporary necessity, but now, as in the beginning, and in 
every intervening age, lifting up in the hearing of universal 
Christendom an authoritative voice of warning and exhorta- 
tion, never more seasonable, never more needed, than at this 
very day. Being dead, Peter still speaks directly, and as 
though he were yet with us, to believers everywhere, or, ac- 
cording to his own instructive description of them, ‘zo chew 


ἘΠῚ Chron. 6:49; Tit. 1:1; James1:; I. + John 20 : 28. 
1 See p. 14. ὃ. 2:@or, .11.:.55.12.2 1%. 


352 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


that have obtained like precious faith with us through the right- 
eousness of God and our Saviour F esus Christ. 

By faith we commonly understand one of two things ; 
either the objective faith, what Paul calls ‘the word of faith’ 
—the system, that is, of revealed truth—as when we read of 
‘a great company cf the priests becoming obedient to the 
faith ;’ or the subjective faith, the faith of the word, that act 
of the soul, whereby the truth is savingly apprehended, as 
when a man is said to be ‘justified by faith.’* Now, very 
many} take the expression here in the former sense, but, I 
think, mistakenly—at least, too exclusively. It presently re- 
curs in the fifth verse, and there it confessedly bears the 
second meaning, the belief of the truth being made the ground 
or starting-point of the practical counsels that follow, just 
because it had been already here assumed to be the charac- 
teristic of those addressed. Indeed, the whole Epistle shows 
clearly enough that the writer was speaking to such as had 
not only heard the Gospel, but were supposed to have yielded 
‘themselves to its control. 

And their faith, he says, was ‘freczous.’ It was so as hav- 
ing God for its Author, as being one of His choicest gifts, 
and the immediate fruit of His Spirit’s regenerating power, 
working through the external word. Of this thought there is 
even a direct suggestion in the text. The wordt rendered 
‘have obtained’ is the same that we find in Luke 1 : 9, ‘ Zs lot 
was to burn incense,’ and again in John 19: 24, ‘let us cast 
lots for it, whose it shall be ;’ so that by the mere use of this 
term the readers were to be reminded that, if they had really 
believed to the saving of their souls, they were indebted for 
their faith, not at all to their own superior sagacity, but solely 
to the allotments of grace. It had been with them as with 
Peter himself; a revelation had been made to them, not by 
flesh and blood, but by the Father of lights.§ In the dispen- 
sation of His favors, that was a blessed portion that had fallen 
to their share. Whatever else had been withheld, at least 


* Rom. 10: 8; Acts 6:7; Rom. 3 : 28. 
+ Huther, Robinson, Alford, etc. t λαχοῦσι. 
§ Heb. 10 : 39.—Bengel: ‘ non ipsi sibi pararunt.’—Matt. τὸ : 17. 


Lecture I[—Chapter τὸ: 1, 2. 353 


this highest distinction had been accorded to them—the ‘faith 
orGads elect:,* 

That faith is precious also for the clear, soul-satisfying light 
it sheds on all matters of profoundest interest—God, provi- 
dence, duty, sin, pardon, the renewing and perfecting of our 
nature, the world’s future, etérnity ; while for the supply of 
our manifold and urgent needs throughout this pilgrimage of 
life and death—daily bread, spiritual strength, guidance, con- 
solation—it leans securely on the ‘exceeding great and pre- 
cious promises,’ (v. 4.) Uniting to Christ, it reconciles to 
God, justifies the ungodly, crucifies every evil tendency, 
draws down the influences of the Divine Spirit and the 
guardianship of angels, and in the midst of all discourage- 
ments and weaknesses, still clings fast to One mighty to save, 
and says: I will not fear. It is thus at once the victory that 
overcometh the world, and the badge of citizenship in a bet- 
ter country, that is, a heavenly.f 

But these things being true of faith in one instance are 
true in all, wherever and in so far as faith exists. Among the 
children of God there is but ‘one faith,’ even as the object of 
faith, Jesus Christ and the truth in Him, is one amd unchangea- 
ble—‘ the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever’—and equal- 
ly precious to all believers. ὁ Therefore it is that, not intend- 
ing certainly to exclude any Christian or class of Christians, 
however imperfect either in knowledge or holiness, or how- 
ever differing from their brethren in private views and preju- 
dices, but for the very purpose of expressly embracing all 
Christians and all classes of Christians, Peter writes ‘ ¢o them 
that have obtained like precious faith with us’—faith equally 
precious, equally honored, § having equal rights and privileges 
in the kingdom of God, with our own. 

And there, it has been thought, || he speaks simply as a 
Christian: ‘like precious faith with us Christians ;’ but in 
that case the ‘ws’ would comprehend the parties addressed, 
and there would be no room for a comparison in respect of 
faith. It is much better to understand him as saying, ‘like 


He Vitalie το 1 15.051; Ἐ5: 46: 2;°1 John 5 : 45) Heb. ΤῊ : 16. 
} Eph. 4:5; Heb. 13:8: 1 Pet. 2:7. § ἰσοτιμον. || De Wette. 


354 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


precious faith with me the writer of this letter, or, ‘with us 
Apostles.’ * The sequel of the chapter, we shall find, fur- 
nishes other examples of this way of referring to the indivi- 
dual, or else the apostolic experience, (vs. 16, 18.) But per- 
haps the best explanation is that which supposes Peter to be 
glancing, as he had done again and again in the First Epistle, 
(ch. 1:2; 2:4-10,) at the old national distinction of Jew 
and Gentile: ‘like precious faith with that of us Jewish 
Christians.’ + And then we at once think of the time, when 
‘they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as 
many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also 
was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost ;’ and of Peter’s 
own repeated assertion of that miracle of the Divine mercy 
in the presence of his Jewish brethren.t 


But what is meant by this ‘like precious faith’ having been 
‘obtained through the righteousness of God and our Saviour 
Fesus Christ’? To say that ‘righteousness’ here stands for 
goodness, ὃ or grace and love, || or faithfulness to promises, ** 
has the look of merely evading a difficulty; and it is even 
Worse to suppose that the term expresses the Divine impar- 
tiality in dispensing the blessings of redemption,}f as if it 
were an unrighteous thing in God to withhold from some 
what He might justly withhold from all. Equally unsatisfac- 
tory is it to understand the phrase of the personal righteous- 
ness of believers, wrought in them through the Divine agen- 
cy, tt as the accompaniment and fruit of faith. 

The simplest and, I believe, the only correct interpretation 
is that which regards the word as bearing very much the 
same meaning that it so often has in Paul’s Epistles, when 
used to denote, not any essential attribute of the Divine na- 
ture, nor yet an inherent quality of human character and 
works, but that wondrous righteousness, provided by ‘ our 


* Calvin, Bengel, Wolf, Briickner, Fronmiiller. 

+ Nic. de Lyra, Barnes, Dietlein, Huther, Besser, Alford, Wordsworth, Wie- 
singer, etc. 

PVA CES τοῖν, 47/52 10 2 1752 15/219) ΤΙ: § Pott. . || De Wette. 
** Beza, Piscator, Grotius. tj Huther, Augusti, Jachmann, Alford. 

tt Bede, Briickner. 


Lecture [—Chapter 11 1, 2. 355 


Saviour Fesus Christ, which the Gospel brings near to men 
as the gift of ‘God’—revealing it from faith to faith—where- 
by God is just, and the justifier of him which believeth in 
7655. ἢ 

Now it may indeed be said that faith is ‘through’ this 
righteousness, inasmuch as, had there been no such righte- 
ousness, there could have been no revelation of it, and conse- 
quently no faith. But the original, it seems to me, represents 
the righteousness rather as the object of faith than as its 
source or medium, the exact translation being, ‘have obtained 
like precious faith with us zz 7 the righteousness ’—in the Di- 
vine economy of human salvation, and especially in its method 
of, not merely manifesting the righteousness of God, but of 
bringing in the sinner righteous before Him. ‘I cannot but 
think that, by overlooking this the most natural and obvious 
interpretation of the clause, commentators have involved 
themselves in much needless difficulty. If one Apostle might 
speak, as Paul does at Rom. 3 : 25, of ‘faith in the blood’ of 
Christ, there can be no reason why another Apostle should 
not speak of ‘faith in the righteousness of God and our Sa- 
viour Jesus Christ.’ t 

Or, as you have it in the margin, ‘of our God and Saviour 
Fesus Christ. And, in connecting the word ‘our’ with ‘God, 
this is unquestionably the more accurate rendering. The only 
doubt is, whether the writer meant to say, ‘of our God and 
Saviour Fesus Christ,’§ or, ‘of our God and of the Saviour 
Fesus Christ; in other words, whether Jesus Christ is here 
spoken of as being.Himself at once our God and Saviour, or 
whether there are two subjects mentioned, God the Father 
and the Saviour Jesus Christ. This question is one that can- 
not be demonstratively determined, just because either con- 
struction is grammatically allowable. In favor of the second 
view is the manifest distinction of subjects in the second 


* 15, 46:13; Rom.1:17; 3 :26.—Horneius: ‘justitia Dei dicitur, quam 
Deus nobis dat et Christus peperit.’ 

ἱ ἐν, Sin reads: εἰς δικαιοσύνην. 

{ Tyndale: ‘faith in the righteousness that cometh of, etc.’ Gerhard, Bengel, 
Scholefield, etc. 

§ The older English versions, Beza, Bengel, Scholefield, and many others. 


356 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


‘verse, while the other is sustained by the ordinary usage of 
the language, and by Peter’s own verbal arrangement in a 
precisely similar case, and in this very Epistle, where three 
several times he uses the formula, ‘our Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ.’* All that we shall say, therefore, is that, al- 
though the matter is not so clear as necessarily to silence the 
gainsayer, or to justify us in resting on such texts as the pre- 
sent the great doctrine of the Saviour’s true Godhead, we are 
yet none the less certain that the application of the common 
rule to these texts would be just as accordant with Peter’s 
manner of speech, as with his creed and profoundest religious 
life. 


Having thus solemnly introduced himself to his readers, 
and described their spiritual standing in such catholic terms 
as embrace all Christian people, the writer adds his apostolic 
benediction, using the same words as in the First Epistle, but 
with a significant addition suggested by the circumstances of 
the time, and appropriate to the special design of the present 
letter: ‘Grace unto yout} and peace be multiplied through the 
knowledge of God and of Fesus ἢ our Lord. 

It has often been noticed, what stress is laid in this Epistle 
on knowledge, § or true, full knowledge ||—for occasionally, as 
here, an emphatic form of the word is used—as if the writer 
had his eye throughout on the false pretenders who claimed 
that as their peculiar distinction. The frequency also with 
which the Saviour is designated as ‘ our Lord’ probably car- 
ries with it a similar allusion to those who ‘despised govern- 
ment’ or lordship, ‘even denying the Lord that bought 
them.’ ** 

Now, just as Scripture, when it speaks of not knowing God, 
implies in that whatever there is of dark and hopeless in the 
condition of the heathen or the unrenewed man,}f so to know 


* V. 11; 2:20, (where Lachmann inserts ἡμῶν after xupiov,) 3:18. In the 
present case likewise Sin. has κυρίου instead of ϑεοῦ. 

t Χάρις ὑμῖν. t After Ἰησοῦ, Sin adds Χριστοῦ. 

§ See νυν 2, Φ 5 0,5; 2: 20, 21; 3: 18. || γνῶσις---ἐπίγνωσις. 
¥** 2:1, 10, (κυριότητος.) tt 1 Thess. 4 : 5, etc. 


Lecture I—Chapter 1 +1, 2. 357 


God is, in the scriptural force of the phrase, the sum of true 
religion. But God is thus savingly known only in and through 
Him who is at once the image of God, and His Word—‘ the 
only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, and 
hath declared Him.’ With a sublime simplicity are these 
first principles enunciated in that most wonderful address 
that, so far as is recorded, ever ascended from earth to 
heaven : ‘And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee 
the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.’ 
And with no less distinctness, they lie at the foundation, and 
inform every utterance, of the apostolic teaching. To ‘in- 
crease in the knowledge of God,’ therefore, is to grow in all 
that is good and blessed.* And so, when Peter prays that 
‘grace and peace may be multiplied’ to the churches, he im- 
mediately adds as an essential condition of the fulfilment of 
the prayer, ‘ ¢hrough, or rather 22 —that is, they abiding and 
advancing in—‘¢he true knowledge of God and of Fesus our 
Lord. ‘Thus, but only thus, would grace exceedingly abound, 
and their peace be as a river. ἢ 


* 2iCor. 4 3 4, (Col: § 815 3) Jom 1: f° 10 5.27'P 35) Col’ rs te. T ἐν. 
ἔτ Tim. 1: 14; Is. 48 : 18.—See Lect. on Thess. pp. 27, 28. 


LECTURE I, 


Pe IEVEES IVOIRE VOR Ἧς 


‘ ACCORDING as His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain 
unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to 
glory and virtue: whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious prom- 
ises: that by these ye might be partakers of the Divine nature, having escaped 
the corruption that is in the world through lust.’ 


You may observe that the punctuation of our English ver- 
sion connects the third verse much more closely with what 
goes before than with what follows. But there is scarcely a 
doubt that this arrangement of the context, though it used to 
be the common one,* is erroneous. As in the former Epistle 
and the apostolic Epistles generally, the inscription and salu- 
tation stand by themselves in a brief and independent period, 
and then comes with a fresh start the formal opening of the 
subject of the letter.’ The true construction takes the next 
five verses together in one sentence, in which, according to 
the manner of the sacred writers, the exhibition contained in 
the third and fourth verses of the Divine power and liberality 
toward believers lays the foundation broad and sure for the 
hortatory urgency of the other three verses. In the present 
Lecture we shall confine ourselves to an inspection of that 
foundation. 


‘ According as’—or rather forasmuch as, considering that,t 
indicating not so much a standard of comparison, as the 


ground of the subsequent exhortation—‘ forasmuch as His 


* And is retained by Lachmann. t+ ὡς with the genitive absolute. 


Lecture Il—Chapter τ: 3, 4. 359 


Divine power’—whose? As the writer had just spoken of 
‘God and of Jesus our Lord,’ it is not certain, nor is it im- 
portant that we should be able to determine, whether he now 
thinks specially of God,* or of Jesus our Lord,+ or of God 
and Jesus, { as existing in the unity of the Godhead, and of 
the Divine operation. The points we have rather to consider 
are the rich spiritual endowment of believers, and the manner 
in which they attain to it, and the ends for which it is be- 
stowed. 

I. First, their spiritual endowment. This embraces ‘a// 
things that pertain unto life and godliness’—whatever is need- 
ed for the production, preservation, growth, and perfection of 
life and godliness. There is, of course, no reference here to 
the natural life of man, however true it is that ‘godliness is 
profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now 
is, as well as ‘of that which is to come.’§ The writer is 
speaking of a life peculiar to Christians—the life of the new 
man—a life that has its root in the knowledge of God, and 
of which godliness is the fruit. Now there had been a time 
when they to whom he wrote were strangers to such a life. 
They were of the Gentiles which knew not God, and were 
dead in trespasses and sins—nay, twice and three times dead— 
at once condemned, and depraved, and without strength. What 
they called their life was but a life in death—a life without 
God in the world, and therefore filled with all ungodliness. 
‘Can these bones live?’—no question could have been pro- 
posed that seemed less susceptible of a satisfactory answer. || 

And yet, behold, they lived! They were alive unto God, 
and, while beset by all evil influences and many fiery trials, 
were living soberly, righteously, and godly in this present 
world 1 ** ; 

Great and wonderful, however, as the change was, the 
Apostle at once accounts for it by saying that his brethren 


» were in possession of ‘a// things’ required for its accomplish- 


* Bengel, De Wette, Wiesinger, etc. t Calvin, Huther. 

1 Dietlein, Fronmiiller. § 1 Tim. 4:8. 

| Eph. 4 : 24; 2:1, 12; 1 Thess.4:5; Jude 12; Rom.1:18; 5:6; Ezek. 
37: 3: 

δ Rom, 6's) DD); Tt Betts Os) aus 12: Lite 2: 12) 


360 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


ment. And what were those things? Apparently the same 
that are called in the next verse ‘ the* exceeding great and pre- 
cious promises’—not the mere verbal promises, whether those 
given in the time of the Old Testament, or some of those 
lately announced by the Saviour while on earth, but their ful- 
filment ;} just as the patriarchs are said to have ‘all died in 
faith, not having received the promises,’ or things promised ; 
and in that same eleventh chapter of Hebrews we find a like 
statement respecting their believing descendants of many 
generations. Indeed, it is in this very sense that the word is 
used in relation to the Christian Israel of the apostolic age, 
when they were told that they ‘had need of patience, that, 
after they had done the will of God, they might receive the 
promise,’ namely, ‘the promise of eternal inheritance,’ or the 
eternal inheritance promised, and to be realized only at the. 
Lord’s return. ¢ 

But the question recurs: To what promises, then, does. 
Peter refer as having already been fulfilled to his brethren ? 
And the answer is not far to seek. The very first promise 
that God gave to man after the fall, that of the woman’s vic- 
torious Seed, really included in it every other. ‘All the prom- 
ises of God in Him are yea, and in Him amen, unto the glory 
of God.’ Hence the exultant and comprehensive terms in 
which the father of the forerunner in prophetic rapture sang 
the near birth of Messiah: ‘Blessed be the Lord God of Is- 
rael; for He hath visited and redeemed His people, and hath 
raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His ser- 
vant David ; as He spake by the mouth of His holy prophets, 
which have been since the world began: that we should be 
saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us ; 
to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember 
His holy covenant ; the oath which He sware to our father 
Abraham, that He would grant unto us, that we,-being deli- 


* ta; which Sin. has likewise in the third verse before πάντα. 

t So Wiesinger, who also cites Estius, Gerhard, etc. Others (Grotius, De 
Wette, Huther) think the reference is to the yet unfulfilled promises. 

t Heb.g: 15; 10: 36; 11 : 13,39. Comp. Luke 24: 49; Acts 1:43; 2:33; 
Gal. 3 : 14,22; Eph. 3:6. In all these places the word is ἐπαγγελία, Peter 
alone using the form ἐπάγχελμα here and at 3 : 13. 


Lecture II—Chapter 1 : 3, 4. 361 


vered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve Him with- 
out fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him, all the 
days of eur life’ In other words, the original and funda- 
mental, the central and all-pervading promise was that of a 
personal Saviour. The Old Testament Gospel was that such 
a Saviour should come. The Gospel of the New Testament 
is that He has come; or, as Paul expressed it in the syna- 
gogue of the Pisidian Antioch: ‘We declare unto you glad 
tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fa- 
thers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in 
that He hath raised up Jesus again.’ ἢ : 

But while the gift of the Son of God as our Saviour carries 
with it and secures all other blessings, we do well to particu- 
larize among those blessings, and as another of the promises 
already fulfilled to the Church, that of the Holy Spirit. This 
is what our Lord Himself expressly distinguished as ‘the 
promise of the Father’—a promise that had shone for ages 
among the records of prophecy—had been taken up and 
repeated with startling energy by the Baptist—and then again 
and again renewed and enlarged by the Saviour during His 
ministry on earth, and that with increasing clearness as ‘the 
time of the promise drew nigh, at His own entrance within 
the veil. Ὁ 

_ Now these two promises especially—that of a Divine Sav- 
iour and that of the Divine Spirit—were things that the old 
prophets ‘ministered not unto themselves, but unto us,’ ¢ and 
they may fitly be characterized as ¢he greatest,§ the very great, 
or ‘the exceeding great and precious promises, inasmuch as they 
who receive this Saviour and this Spirit do in effect receive 
‘all things that pertain unto || life and godliness. They pass 
from death into life. Christ Himself becomes their life. The 


* 2 Gor. 1 : 20; Luke 1 : 67-75; Acts 13 : 32, 33. 

Tt Is. 44:3; Ez. 39: 29; Joel 2: 28, 29; Zech. 12: 10; Matt. 3:11; John 
11.22.;.7.: 320}; Pda LO i ZOG 15: 20 27.3.10. 7ΞΙΆ. 

ΤΣ ΕΓ, 1.3. 12 

§ τὰ μέγιστα. Lachmann and Alford read ἡμῖν after τίμια, (Ο, G, J; A has 
ὑμῖν in the same position ;) Tischendorf τίμια καὶ μέγιστα, (B and Sin., except: 
that the latter has ἡμῖν after τίμια.) 

|| Sin.? here inserts the words, τὸν ϑεὸν Kai. 


362 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


quickening Spirit is also their Sanctifier. Living by the 
Spirit, they walk by the Spirit.*—To this position of privi- 
lege and high dignity do all true believers attain. 


II. And our second inquiry is, How do they reach it? 
The Apostle’s answer is, in substance, this: All these things 
are of God, and they are all His gift—His free gift. Both in 
providing them for sinners, and in bringing sinners to the 
knowledge and enjoyment of them, He displays alike His 
Divine power and His grace. This truth stands out con- 
spicuous in the verses before us, and it is even more strongly 
marked in the original ; there being very little doubt that the 
words in the last clause of the third verse, ‘called us to glory, 
should rather have been, dccording to the suggestion of the 
margin, called us by t glory; or, if we adopt what is now com- 
monly taken to be the better reading, dy Hzs own ἢ glory. 

1. Observe, then, in the first place, that in communication 
of these saving benefits there is a putting forth of the Divine 
power. No power less than that which is Divine could ac- 
count for the result. ‘Who can bring a clean thing out of an 
unclean,’ but God? Weare expressly told that it was through 
the overshadowing power of the Highest that a sinful woman 
bore the Holy Child, the Redeemer of the world. The same 
power sustained the Man of Sorrows in His life-long conflict 
with the powers of darkness, gave Him the victory of the cross, 
and raised Him from the dead to His Father's throne. And 
it is still the same brooding energy that is even now educing 
from this chaos of sin and death the new heavens and the new 
earth—quickening souls with the life of the Risen One, and 
guiding, guarding, and comforting them amidst all subsequent 
temptations and perils and sorrows through faith unto salva- 
tion, while at the same time it restrains the violence of devils, 


» 
* John 5 : 24 and 1 John3: 14 γ(εἰς ;) Col. 3:4; Gal. 2:20; 5 : 25, (πνεύ- 
ματι, in both clauses.) 


t dud. Comp. the force of διά in v. 4; Rom. 6:4; Gal. 1:15; 2 Thess. 
2: 14, etc. 


Ε ἰδίᾳ, for διά, is read by Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford, (Sin. A, C, Vulgate 
Calvin, etc.) 


Lecture I1—Chapter τ: 3, 4. 363 


confounds the counsels of the ungodly, and makes both con- 
tribute to the accomplishment of the purposes of grace.* 
This idea of the Divine power receiving one of its brightest 
illustrations in the experience of the Church, is one quite 
familiar to the sacred writers. Thus, Paul prayed for the 
Ephesians, that they might know ‘what is the exceeding 
greatness of God’s power to us-ward who believe, according 
to the energy of the power of His might,t which He wrought 
in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him 
at His own right hand in the heavenly places ;’ and for the 
Colossians, that they might be ‘strengthened with all might, 
according to His glorious power, unto all patience and long- 
suffering with joyfulness,’ as he also exhorts Timothy to ‘ be 
partaker of the afflictions of the Gospel according to the 
power of God.’ The celebration of God’s power and strength 
and might, accordingly, is an ever-recurring element in the 
songs of angels and of the redeemed in heaven.t And the 
very same thought, it is obvious, pervades our text: ‘zs 
Divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto 
life and. godliness.’ And just as Paul speaks of Christ having 
been ‘raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father,’ so 
Peter here says that God ‘called us’—that is, effectually, 
savingly, into the fellowship of His Son and the hope of His 
children—‘dy glory and virtue, or, as the last word § primarily 
imports, exergy, might. By the use in both places of a some- 
what peculiar expression, we are again taught that the resur- 


* Job 14:4; Luke 1:35; 1 Pet. 1: 5, (seep. 32.) 

1 κατὰ τὴν ἐνέργειαν τοῦ κράτους τῆς ἰσχύος αὐτοῦ. 

¢ Eph. 1: 18-20; Col. 1:11; 2 Tim. 1:8; Rev. 4: 113 5 : 12, 17; 7: 12 

ΠΤ Bie op 

§ dpet7—which in classic Greek, like the Latin virtus, often bears the general 
sense of excellence of body or mind. In the Septuagint it is found for 444 the 
maesty of God, Hab. 3 : 3; Zech. 6 : 13, and in the plural for nba or nian, 


His praise or praises, Is, 42 : 8, 12; 43:21; 63:7. In the New Testament it 
occurs only in Phil. 4 : 8, (moral excellence, " I Pet. 2 : 9, (plural: the Zerfections 
existing in the Divine nature, and illustrated in the calling of the Church. See 
p. 123,) and in the present context.—It is worthy of note, that the Vulgate habi- 
tually translates δυναμις (as at ch. 2: 11) by virtus, and is followed by Wiclif, 
virtue. The only remains of this in the common version are in ees 5 2303 
Luke 6:19; 8:46. Comp. p. 370. 


364 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


rection of the Saviour and such a calling of wandering, per- 
ishing men afford kindred displays of whatever is glorious in 
the Divine nature, and of the corresponding efficiency of the 
Divine operation.* And then, resuming the leading state- 
ment of the third verse, our Apostle adds that this ‘¢/ory and 
might’ are shown, not merely in calling sinners into the house- 
hold of faith, but also in the preparations made there for their 
entertainment : ‘ whereby’—that is, by which same glory and 
might—‘ are given unto us the exceeding great and precious 
promises ’—given, that is, in their fulfilment, as was explained 
before, and not simply in word. 

2. But in all this, be it noticed in the second place, the 
grace of God is not less conspicuous than His power. Much 
as it has cost Him to provide so great salvation for us, to us 
it comes freely, and nothing is asked of us in return but the 
acceptance of it without money and without price. It is no 
vain repetition—not at all an instance of bad taste or a slov- 
enly style—for Peter to say in one verse, ‘ His Divine power 
hath given unto us.all things that pertain unto life and godli- 
ness, and then immediately in the next verse to say again, 
‘by which’ glory and might ‘He hath given} unto us the ex- 
ceeding great and precious promises.’ On the contrary, his 
language is studiously significant. He would thus the more 
deeply impress it on our hearts that we have nothing that we 
have not received, and that all is of grace. 

3. On the other hand, however, it must not be supposed for 
a moment that, when a man is saved, it is done unconscious- 
ly, as it were in his sleep, or as when an ass or an ox is 
dragged out of a pit. The process involves no disregard or 
violation of his rational and spiritual nature. All is done in 
benign accordance therewith—nay, consists largely in its en- 
lightenment and rectification. For, as in the old creation, so 
also in the new, the first word of the Almighty Voice is, ‘ Let 
there be light’ Says our Apostle, here too repeating what he 
had mentioned just before, and what we formerly { saw to be 
a favorite thought throughout this Epistle: ‘His Divine power 


* Huther : ‘da bezeichnet das Sein, ἀρετή die Wirksamkeit.’ 
+ δεδώρηται---ταϊ 4416 deponent, as in v. 3. 1 See p. 356. 


Lecture II—Chapter 1 : 3, 4. 365 


hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godli- 
ness through the knowledge of Him who called us.’* And the 
term used is again that which denotes full, true, thorough 
knowledge—at least, such a knowledge of God as first visits 
the soul in the day of its effectual calling, not only illuminat- 
ing, but transforming, and enabling it in adoring, filial recog- 
nition to say: ‘I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the 
ear; but now mine eye seeth Thee’ ‘Through this know- 
ledge believers receive the benefit of all that the Divine power 
has wrought on their behalf, and of all the gifts of redeeming 
love. In this knowledge, therefore, they ‘stand perfect and 
complete,’ ¢ and have no need, for whatever concerns spiritual 
life and godliness, to run after any other knowledge. 


III. The inference will appear yet more certain, when we 
consider, in the last place, the ends for which this knowledge 
itself, as well as all its accompanying blessings, are bestowed. 

These ends are ‘life and godliness, § or, as the expression is 
varied and amplified in the fourth verse, ‘that by these’—to 
wit, the promises as fulfilled and fulfilling in your experience 
—‘ye might become|| partakers of the Divine nature, having 
escaped the corruption that ts in the world through lust. 

The nature, tendencies, and effect of sin, as a wasting, de- 
stroying blight, are well expressed by the term corruption ; 
and the representation is a favorite one with our Apostle. ἘΞ 
Here he speaks of corruption as being ‘ through lust, or in tt 
Just ; that is, as having its source or ground in lust—in de- 
praved affections and appetites, as ‘the lust of the flesh, and 
the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life’—that ‘evil con- 
cupiscence’ in its manifold forms, which in the unrenewed 


* dud τὴς ἐπιγνώσεως τοῦ καλέσαντος ἡμᾶς. ie ]ΠΟΡΖΙΞ Ια: fa ΘΟ τ“ 12) 

§ The grammatical reference of τούτων to ἐπαγγέλματα (Calvin, Dietlein, 
Huther, Wiesinger, etc.) is more natural than Bengel’s to δόξης καὶ ἀρετῆς, or 
Benson and De Wette’s to τὰ πρὸς ξωήν. De Wette and Huther erroneously 
cite Calvin as adopting the last reference. Fronmiiller would combine it with 
the first. 

| γένησϑε. 
FPO Peli: 4515, 259} 5.34; 2 ΊΒΒΕΙ͂Σ - Ἴ2, 10. Comps Rom, Θ᾽: 215° 1° Cor, 
15:42, 50; Gal. 6: 8, etc. 

Tt ἐν. 


366 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


heart holds the place due to the love of God, the Supreme 
Good. And this corruption is said to be ‘22 the world’—in 
it, like poison in the cup, or the dry-rot in wood, or the cling- 
ing leprosy, or the breath of the pestilence in the air around 
us—inherent, inseparable, all-pervading. It taints every 
sphere of man’s being, physical, intellectual, moral, and all 
the relations of life, whether in the family, or in society, or in 
the state; and its natural consummation is in everlasting de- 
struction of body, soul, and spirit—the dissolution and hor- 
rors of the second death. Meanwhile, from man himself the 
curse has passed into the ground from which he was taken, 
and out of which his doom is to earn his bread by the sweat 
of his brow. The very heavens over his head are shrouded 
with the baleful shadow, and they too shall pass away. ‘For 
we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in 
pain together until now;’ but not, blessed be God, in de- 
spair; in hope rather of a coming ‘deliverance from the 
bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children 
of God.’ * 

Now, says Peter, one grand design of God in all the dis- 
pensations of His almighty grace is first of all to work out 
that same deliverance for His children themselves. In the 
general pollution and ruin they were involved, even as others. 
But they ‘escape from’ it, like a bird out of the fowler’s 
snare, or like Lot out of Sodom, and this only through the in- 
terposition of the Divine hand—the strength that is in it, and 
the gifts which it brings. Of Jesus Christ Himself, God’s un- 
speakable gift, we read that He ‘ gave Himself for us, that He 
might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a 
peculiar people, zealous of good works.’ And this purpose of 
His atoning death He finally accomplished ‘by the laver of 
regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost.’ What 
was said of old to the members of the church of Corinth will 
be no less true of the innumerable multitude—the general 


Ὁ ΘΟ 5: κ΄; Ἐοτη: 8.: 21, 22: 

ἵ ἀποφυγόντες, with the genitive. This verb occurs in ch. 2 : 18, 20, and no- 
where else in the New Testament. Instead of τῆς ἐν κόσμῳ ἐν ἐπιϑυμίᾳ φϑορᾶς, 
Sin. reads τὴν ἐν τῷ (A, B, C likewise have the article, which is edited by Lach- 
mann) κόσμῳ ἐπιϑυμίαν φϑορᾶς. 


Lecture I1—Chapter τ: 3, 4. 367 


assembly of the redeemed: ‘But ye are washed, but ye are 
sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, 
and by the Spirit of our God.’ * 

Nor do even these blessings fully take in ‘the breadth, and 
length, and depth, and height’ of this great salvation. Our 
text plainly points to a yet more transcendent and altogether 
illimitable glory, when it speaks of our ‘ becoming partakers 
of the Divine nature’ > as an ultimate end of the economy of 
redemption. -We are not, indeed, to indulge the pantheistic 
dream of the absorption of our individual personality into the 
Divine essence. But, while utterly repudiating so wild a fig- 
ment of profane speculation, let us not doubt, on the other 
hand, that the realities of truth amply justify the Apostle’s 
language. ' 

If God Himself be our God, and all His attributes and in- 
finite resources form the guarantee of our eternal well-being, 
may we not rightly be said to ‘ partake of the Divine nature’? 

Let it also be considered that God’s children do share, ac- 
cording to the measure of the creature, in His own perfec- 
tions ; and that the original constitution of man, as made in 
the image, after the likeness, of God, may well be conceived 
of as rendering their capacity in this respect greater even 
than that of angels. The eternal years of God are theirs. 
Through Him who strengtheneth them they can do all things. 
Renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created 
them, they see light in the light of God. They have an unc- 
tion from the Holy One, and know all things. They are 
created in righteousness and holiness of the truth—called to 
be holy as God is holy—in such a way, and to such a degree, 
as to be partakers of His holiness. They shall tread Satan 
under their feet. They shall judge the world. They shall 
inherit all things. They shall sit with Christ in His throne. ἢ 
It is not strange that the possession of such powers and pre- 


Ἔ 2 Corio: 055 ΤΠ ΣΦ rq ays, (λουτροῦ 1 Cor..6 2 11. 

t Sin.: ϑειάς φύσεως κοινωνοί. 

ΠΤ Gen. 1: 26; Phil. 4: 13; Col. 7:10; Ps. 36:9; 1 John 2:20; Eph. Δ: 
24, (ὁσιότητι τῆς dAnYeiac;) τ Pet. 1: 15,16; Heb. 12:10; Rom. 16:20; 
ΤΟΥ 6:2. 5; ἘΟΥΖΙ ΞΔ; Be MiG 


368 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


rogatives as these should be described as a participation of 
the Divine nature. ‘ 

But, still better to understand the blessed import and ap- 
propriateness of the phrase, we must not leave out of view 
those great mysteries of the faith—the incarnation of the Son 
of God, the vital union of believers with the Lord, and the 
personal indwelling in them of the Holy Spirit. It is only 
as ‘through a glass, darkly,’ that we can now look into any 
one of these wondrous verities. But in the presence of all 
three we can feel well assured, that to say of the Church, She 
is made a partaker of the Divine nature and sits in heavenly 
places, involves no stretch of thought or language beyond 
what is required by the statement: ‘The Word was made 
flesh, and dwelt among us.’ He stooped to her low estate, 
and that not so much in the way of outward succor as of the 
closest identification—becoming bone of her bones and flesh 
of her flesh—that He might then lift her to a partnership in 
His glory—the glory which He had with the Father before 
the world was. And here again the result is reached, not so 
much in the way of local approximation, as of spiritual one- 
ness. Believers are members of Christ’s body, of His flesh, 
and of His bones—not, however, of a dead Christ, but of the 
living—of that same redeemed humanity, which now in the 
person of the eternal Son lives and reigns for ever in the 
glory of the Father. ‘He that is joined unto the Lord is one 
Spirit’ And thus at last is fulfilled the Saviour's prayer : 
‘As Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee, that they also 
may be one in us.’ ἢ 


We have thus under the apostolic guidance considered, as 
was proposed, the rich spiritual endowment of believers, the 
manner in which they attain to it, and the ends for which it 
is bestowed. In our next Lecture we shall see what, accord- 
ing to the Apostle, is the practical bearing of these high 
_ truths on the present character and life of Christians. 


* 1 Cor. 13:12; 6:17; John 1:14; Gen. 2:23; John 17: 5,21; Eph. 
5:30. 


LECTURE 11]. 


—_<>--— 


2 PETER τ: 5-7. 


‘AND beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue ; and to virtue 
knowledge ; and to knowledge temperance ; and to temperance patience ; and 
to patience godliness ; and to godliness brotherly kindness ; and to brotherly 
kindness charity.’ 


In the two previous verses the writer sets forth the gra- 
cious privileges conferred on his brethren, and here he sum- 
mons them to their corresponding duties; the latter, you are 
to observe, being introduced as usual by way of natural and 
necessary inference from the former. This is more clearly 
indicated in the original, where for the words, ‘ “πα besides 
this, we have what would be better rendered, ‘ But for this 
very reason also ;’* that is to say, Divine grace having sup- 
plied the motive and the spiritual ability, beware lest ye 
frustrate the grace of God. Think not that, since He has 
done so much for you, you have nothing to do yourselves. On 
the contrary, just because it is God which worketh in you 
both to will and to do of His good pleasure, work out your 
own salvation with fear and trembling. Recollect the great 
ends for which He has called and quickened you, and enriched 
you with all gifts of His almighty love ; ‘that, having escaped 
from the corruption that is in the world through lust, ye 
might become partakers of the Divine nature.’ » Rest not 
satisfied, then, with a mere negative’ salvation, or with any 
low, fragmentary measure of accomplishment. But, codpera- 


* καὶ αὐτὸ τοῦτο δέ, (Sin: καὶ αὐτὸ δὲ τοῦτο͵) See Passow, (οὗτος, II. (ἢ 
Kiihner, ὃ 278. R. 2, and Winer § . Comp. Xenophon, Azad. 1. 9. 21.--- 
Lachmann reads αὐτοὶ δέ, (A.) 


370 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


ting to the full extent of the Divine purpose, go on unto per- 
fection.* Nor is this to be done without care and effort on 
your part, but only by your ‘gzvzzg’—or-as Peter’s word, 
which occurs nowhere else in the New Testament, might be 
translated, contributing |—‘all diligence.’ 

Two or three other verbal criticisms may here be noted as 
worthy of attention. Thus, the phrase, ‘add to your faith, 
would more properly be, furnish in your faith.t It is the same 
verb that in the eleventh verse, and in the few other texts§ in 
which it is met with, is rendered in our version Zo mznister, 
and so it is here in most of the older English versions.|] The 
substitution of 27 for zo holds good in all the clauses. 

Again, since virtue is now used almost exclusively as the 
name of moral excellence in general, one does not readily see 
how we can be required to add first virtue to faith, and then 
to virtue the particular virtues that are immediately specified. 
Most interpreters, therefore, are agreed in taking the Greek 
term here in a sense akin to that in which we found it em- 
ployed in the third verse to denote the Divine might or effi- 
ciency.** In the present instance it is quite commonly, and 
I believe correctly, understood to convey the idea of fortztude, 
firmness, energy, εἰς. 7 

I shall only add that zemperance, as now commonly used of 
moderation in eating and drinking—if, indeed, the later appli- 
cation of it to abstinence from intoxicating drinks has not 
come to be still more current and popular—by no means gives 
the full meaning intended in the sixth verse. We shall do 
well to exchange this term for some one more general, as 
moderation, self-government, self-control. So that with these 
modifications, and of course changing also charity of the 


δ πε]: 2 : 21; ἘΠῚ. 2 i112 anor mrleDsaOyemle 

+ παρεισένεγκαντες. Bengel takes the παρά as indicating modesty ; De Wette 
and Huther aso your side ; .Wiesinger, daneben, dagegen. 

t ἐπιχορηγήσατε ἐν. 

ΠΣ ον Θ,; 10); Gal. 3 355 (ΟἹ Ζ Σ 19. 

|| As Wiclif, Tyndale, Cranmer, the Rhemish. The Genevan has zoyme moreover, 
both it and the common version apparently following Beza’s adjicite. 

** See p. 363, note ὃ. 

tt For the use of ἐγκρατεία, see Acts 24:25; Gal. 5 : 23; Septuagint Sir. 
18 : 30, etc. 


Lecture [1I—Chapter τ: 5-7. 371 


seventh verse into Jove, we may read the whole thus: ‘ Bur 
for this very reason also do ye, contributing all diligence, fur- 
nish in your faith fortitude; and in fortitude, knowledge ; 
and in knowledge, self-control; and in self-control, patience ; 
and in patience, godliness ; and in godliness, brotherly kind- 
ness; and in brotherly kindness, love. 


On these words I would now remark, in the first place, that 
those addressed are assumed to be believers. They are not 
asked to furnish faith. That, according to the description 
previously given of them, they had already obtained as the 
eift of God. No doubt, the very first duty of every man to 
whom the Gospel comes is to believe in the Lord Jesus 
Christ. But, having once been brought through grace to be- 
lieve, he is then to see to it, in the exercise of the powers of 
his new life, that faith do not remain inoperative and alone. 
Out of it, as from their natural germ, must grow all the fea- 
tures of the Christian character. 

And from this again it follows that these various graces— 
the several members of the new man—are held together by 
the bond of a living unity. They are not, indeed, equally 
developed in all the children of God, nor even in the same 
individual. This depends in a great measure on the original 
constitution, the education and circumstances of men. But 
it is none the less true that all the fruits of the Spirit hang 
on the same stem, and draw their life and nourishment from 
one and the same root. And not only so, but each is related 
to, and implies, every other, and is itself supplemented by the 
rest, and without them is not made perfect.* Something like 
this is readily enough suggested by that peculiar turn of 
phraseology which has been pointed out: ‘furnish tm your 
faith fortitude; and in. fortitude, knowledge ;’ and so on, all 
Christian virtues lying contiguous to and overlapping one 
another, while of the whole domain faith is the centre and 
citadel. Abide in that to which you have attained, and in the 
spirit and power of that take your next step—nay, complete 
the cycle of duty. Of each pair of graces here mentioned 


* Heb. II : 40. 


372 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


the one is to be zz the other, like adjoining colors of the rain- 
bow—mingled with it, and exhibited along with it—and then 
all coalesce into one bright orb of beauty, binding together 
heaven and earth, God and man. For of the glorious arch 
faith is the starting-point, and the consummation is love. 

Nor is the general truth of this representation impaired, it 
is rather confirmed, by the fact that the order of mention 
might be, and actually is sometimes, varied. Thus Paul 
again and again begins his enumerations of the moral duties 
just where Peter ends, with ‘love.’ * In fact, as has been 
already intimated, all the links of this golden chain have the 
closest mutual connection, so that, laying your hand on any 
one of them, you can at pleasure touch any other. But at 
present let us turn over these links in brief review, just as 
they lie in the passage before us. 


‘Furnish in your faith fortitude’—the fortitude that faith 
inspires, and which in its turn honors faith. Let not yours 
be a timid, feeble, ineffective faith ; but let it show a power 
and energy befitting its source—even the Divine power and 
might celebrated just before in the third verse. Like the 
tribes of Israel in the wilderness, you too have been redeemed 
‘with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm, Follow 
with no hesitating or tottering steps the cloudy, fiery pillar 
in which, as you believe and know, God dwells. Whatever it 
be that you are called to do or to suffer for His name’s sake, 
‘stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.’ 
What the Apostles require of us is a certain manliness of 
character and action—a strenuous tone and vigor of soul f— 
something of that heroic quality of faith, by which in ancient 
times it had ‘subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, ob- 
tained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the 
violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weak- 
ness was made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight 
the armies of the aliens, and by which, also, in the first ages 


Ἔ ΠΌΤ 12.;0. (Gal. 5 22; ΒΠῚ: 1: ἢν 
t Bengel : ‘strenuus animee tonus ac vigor.’ 


Lecture [T11—Chapter τ: 5-7. 373 


of the Church, it renewed and multiplied similar and yet 
greater exploits in the wider field of the Roman empire.* 
The next thing required is ‘22 fortitude knowledge’—not 
quite the same word, nor is the idea the same, as when the 
previous verses speak of ‘the knowledge of God and of Jesus 
our Lord,’ ‘the knowledge of Him that calleth’ us.— Here it 
is rather a practical knowledge that is meant—the knowledge 
of duty, of what it becomes a Christian to do in the various 
relations and circumstances of life, as when in the First Epis- 
tle (3 : 7) husbands are exhorted to dwell with their wives 
‘according to knowledge.’ Of course, a very different thing © 
from the false, pretentious, speculative knowledge in which 
some were beginning to boast themselves. And this know- 
ledge was to accompany and temper fortitude. A zeal that is 
not according to knowledge—a force void of discretion {—a 
blind strength—a reckless daring—these are not Christian 
ornaments, however frequently they are mistaken for such. 
On the other hand, the firm resoluteness of spirit which faith 
in God produces and justifies, and which is ready at all costs 
and hazards to go forward in the path of His choosing, is an 
excellent preparation for enabling a man to discern in what 
direction that path lies. ‘If any man will do’—is bent on 
doing—‘ God’s will, he shall know of the doctrine. § An 
evangelical fortitude is favorable to the enlargement of evan- 
gelical knowledge ; which, in its turn, is essential to the regu- 
lation and safe exercise of fortitude. | 
Hence, in the third place, the connection in our text of 
knowledge with self-control: Furnish ‘zz knowledge self-con- 
trol. An ignorant person, however well disposed, or rather 
in proportion to the strength even of his good impulses, is 
‘prone to extravagance, both in judgment and action, and so 
is apt to let his good be evil spoken of ; as when he casts his 





#) Deut 267: 8}. 1 Cor, ΤΟ, 5.12.5 Fleb; ΣΙ : 33,34. 
Tt There éxiyvworc—here γνῶσις. 
t Rom. 10 : 2,—Horace, Carm. 3. 4. 65-7: 

‘ Vis consili expers mole ruit sua ! 


Vim temperatam Di quoque provehant 
In majus.’ 


§ John 7: 17, (ἐών τις θέλῃ.) 


374 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


pearls before swine, or rushes unbidden into the fire of mar- 
tyrdom, or thinks by the wrath of man to work the righteous- 
ness of God, and in his hatred of sin, or of what he deems to 
be sin, fails in charity to the sinner, or scandalizes and maligns 
his brethren. Moreover, the tendency of unsanctified know- 
ledge itself is to ‘puff up.” * The knowledge especially of 
which the fanatics of that age made their boast begat a spirit 
of the wildest presumption, and in particular was thought to 
set its votaries free from all obligation of restraint on the 
bodily appetites. True knowledge, on the contrary—such 
knowledge as is learned in the school and at the feet of Christ 
—the knowledge of ourselves as fallen and as redeemed—of 
man’s weakness and temptations, and of God’s grace, that 
alone enables him to surmount both—the knowledge of what 
this world is at its best estate, and of the transcendent, infi- 
nitely solemn interests of eternity—the knowledge, finally, and 
daily study of Christ’s own character, that glorious embodi- 
ment of all that is meek and gentle, pure and peaceable, love- 
ly and of good report—the knowledge, I say, and spiritual 
understanding of these things tends directly and strongly to 
beget calmness and moderation in our dealings with others, 
as well as a spirit of habitual recollection and self-restraint in 
our individual pursuits. And in this case too may be noted 
the existence of reciprocal action. As a natural result of 
Christian knowledge is a temper of sobriety, so does such a 
temper preserve the eye of the soul clear and untroubled for 
still deeper researches into the things of God. There is no- 
thing more fatal to spiritual discernment than the abandon- 
ment of heart and life to worldly dissipation or fleshly lusts. 
Not less obvious is the connection between self-control and 
its other neighbor, patience: Furnish ‘2x self-control patience, 
or a steadfast endurance, under whatsoever persecutions or 
temptations.t In this quality a passionate, or an effeminate, 
licentious person is sure to be found deficient ; whereas he 
who can best withstand the allurements and solicitations of 
all that is earthly and sensual, is the likeliest to face without 


er ΟΣ Ἐς ἱ 
t Epictetus : ’Avéyou καὶ dnéxou=Sustine, abstine=sustain, abstain. 


Lecture I1I—Chapter τ : 5-7. 375 


‘flinching the opposition of the world, the assaults of Satan 
and his emissaries, the tongue of slander, or the tyrant’s 
sword. It is not that he will not feel the pressure of the 
cross, but that with his mind undistracted, and his spiritual 
fibres unrelaxed, by secular indulgence, he is able to bear it. 
And then again the bearing of it confirms, while it illustrates, 
his self-control. According to that word of the Lord, ‘in his 
patience he possesses his soul.’ * 

But you are not to suppose that this patience or power of 
endurance, any more than the other qualities mentioned, is an 
attainment or constitutional endowment of the natural man. 
It is the patience of faith—of faith in ‘ the God of patience’— 
of faith in His presence, His sovereignty, His love, His pro- 
mises. And therefore says the Apostle, though he had al- 
ready at the first suspended all on faith, yet with a regard 
perhaps to the special necessities of the time: Furnish ‘zz 
patience godliness. Endure as seeing Him who is invisible. 
Let the thought of God—a religious sense—holy reverence— 
and a child-like trust in Him—be the life and strength of pa- 
tience. It will then be no sullen submission to an inevitable 
fate, but ‘the patience of hope,’ like that of Jesus Christ Him- 
self, when He endured the cross for the joy that was set be- 
fore Him. And all the while it will be found no less true 
that patience worketh experience. Suffering thus, you will 
have an ever-growing assurance of the Divine favor; and god- 
liness, having produced patience, will by patience be nourished 
and enlarged. You recollect the Psalmist’s song of old: ‘I 
love the Lord, because He hath heard my voice and my sup- 
plications. I was brought low, and He helped me. Return 
unto thy rest, O my soul.’ Ὁ 

And then, loving God, see that ye love also your brethren: 
Furnish ‘zz godliness brotherly kindness. In his First Epistle 
the writer insists much and earnestly on this grace, and there, 
as here, he urges its necessity as a fruit and evidence of regen- 
eration, and of the filial relation to God. ἢ 


* Luke 21 : 19. 

Ἷ Rome πὸ τ; 5.3.4} ἘΠ ΤΣ ὙΡῚ,; 12.12.5 δὲν, τ Ὁ. To Ghess. 1 5.7.} ἘΒ᾿: 
ΤΙ 1, 6; 

Ἐ 5 On I bet. 19322) 25: 2 ula sano sun: Ὁ: 


376 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


And when, lastly, he would have believers furnish ‘727 dro- 
therly kindness love; he may be understood as requiring a 
higher intensity of the feeling than the first of the two ex- 
pressions might be supposed to imply, as when in one of the 
passages just referred to he said with a like change of phrase: 
‘Having purified your souls in the obedience of the truth 

through the Spirit unto brotherly kindness unfeigned, out of 
a pure heart love one another intensely.* This, however, by 
no means excludes the more common explanation of the last 
clause as extending the sphere of the benevolent affections 
beyond the limits of the Christian brotherhood, and so as to 
include all men, even our enemies. ‘He that dwelleth in love : 
dwelleth in God,’ for ‘God is love,’ and, while He too has spe- 
cial favor ‘for those of His own house,’ He is ‘ good to all, and 
His tender mercies are over all His works.’ ‘He maketh His 
sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on 
the just and on the unjust.’ There is therefore a beautiful 
significance in the Apostle’s close juxtaposition of godliness 
with brotherly kindness and love—fervent, all-embracing love. 

It deserves now to be noticed once more, that this train of 
eraces—this ‘rosary and conjugation of Christian virtues,’ as 
Jeremy Taylor calls it {—begins with faith, and ends with 
love; the one being the foundation or root, the other the 
crowning glory and bright, consummate flower of all Chris- 
tian excellence. 


Such, then, in the judgment of our Apostle, should be, so 
far as we are personally concerned, our great aim in life—not 
the enjoyment of ease and quiet, nor yet the accumulation of 
wealth, or honor, or influence, or stores of learning, but the 
‘building up of ourselves on our most holy faith,’ or in other 
words, the formation of a perfect character. Nor, as we for- 
merly remarked, and in spite of the lazy dream of very many 
Christian professors, is this highest end to be reached with- 
out effort. It requires, on the contrary, not only the plastic 


* 1 Pet. I : 22, (φιλαδελφίαν... ἀγαπήσατε.) 
tz John 4:16; 1 Tim. 5:8; Ps. 145 : 0; Matt 5: 45 
1 Zhe Great Exemplar, 2. 12. 34. 


Lecture [1] —Chapter.% : 5-7. 357 


energy of Divine grace, but the contribution also on our part 
of ‘all diligence’ Alas! how very little of this diligence 
shows itself among church-members! How very little is 
there even, it may be feared, of conscious desire to grow in 
grace, and go on unto perfection! Still less is there of Paul’s 
visible pressing toward the mark, And seeing the hindrances 
are so many and so formidable both within us and around, and 
we meanwhile are thus lethargic and unconcerned about our 
greatest interest, it is only too easy to account for the low and 
incomplete, the stunted, distorted, mutilated character of ave: 
rage Christians. May God of His great mercy arouse us, as 
many as have named the name of Christ, to a more painstak- 
ing earnestness in running the race set before us, and save 
_ poor souls, wandering on every side, while they look on and 
jeer at us, from being themselves prejudiced and destroyed by 
our example of unfaithfulness to our high calling. 

Them too I would affectionately warn against the delusion 
increasingly prevalent in our day, that it is quite possible for 
aman to attain to a symmetrical, blameless character, such as 
God Himself will acknowledge and reward, apart from the 
grace of regeneration and the faith of His children. True, 
there may be even in that case the semblance of most or of 
all of the virtues here enumerated, nor are such counterfeits 
without their value and uses in human society. But this I 
say, that these are not the fruits of the Spirit, and that, reared 
in the cold shade of unbelief, they are for the most part easi- 
ly enough distinguished even now by the spiritual taste as 
having never partaken of ‘the root and fatness’ of the 
Heavenly Vine, and never felt the mellowing influence of 
the Sun of righteousness. Rid your minds, I pray you, of 
the preposterous, the fatal, presumption, that any such Cain’s 
offering as that will be accepted at the altar, or on the judg- 
ment day, in place of the blood of expiation, and a holiness 
that reflects the image of the holy Saviour. These better 
things you have not, because you refuse to receive them from. 
the hand of a Mediator. What if that which you have, and 
in which alone you trust, shall be taken away from you?’ 
There is, as we have seen, a gracious kindred among the vir- 
tues, and it might be shown that there exists a foul affinity 


378 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


of as close a kind among the vices. Nor is there any thing 
in moral science more certain than the progressive deteriora- 
tion of a soul cut off from the Fountain. of life. ‘The path 
of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more 
unto the perfect day. The way of the wicked is as darkness’ 
—yea, it leads ever downward into the deepening gloom of 
‘the blackness of darkness for ever.’ * 


* Rom. 11:17; Matt. 13: 12: Prov. 4: 18, 19; Jude 13. 


EECTURE TYP: 


--.ς-- 


2 PETER 1 : $11. 


‘For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall nei- 
ther be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he 
that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that 
he was purged from his old sins, Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence 
to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never 
fall; for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the ever- 
lasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.’ 


THE preceding exhortation to the diligent culture of an 
evangelical morality in its sevenfold specification is here en- 
forced by the consideration of what is involved, on the one 
side, in the observance of the precept, and, on the other, in 
the neglect of it. 


‘ For of these things’—the various Christian graces just enu- 
merated—‘ be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall 
neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord 
Fesus Christ. 

What was the precise distinction, if any, intended between 
being ‘darren’ and being ‘ uzfruztful’ is far from being obvious. 
But the question is not one that would be suggested by the 
original. There the first word* means sluggish, inert, or, as 
it is rendered in our English Testament six times out of 
eight,} zd/e; and so the older English versions ¢ and our own 
_ In the margin give it also in the present instance. 

Nor does Peter put the whole verse quite so strongly into 


* ἀργούς. iy ΜΕ 12.1.20; 20:2); 1 Tim, 5:13 5° ΤΙΣ : 12. 
t+ Tyndale, Cranmer, Geneva. 


380 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


the hypothetical form as do our translators ;* but with his eye 
on the case before him, the profession and standing of those 
addressed, (vs. 1, 10,) what properly belongs to that, (vs. 3, 4, 
9,) and their actual attainments, (vs. 12, 19,) he would seem 
to illustrate thereby a general truth or law of the Divine life. 
No doubt, what he desires to impress on his readers is, that 
a certain result is dependent on certain conditions. But, in 
doing this, he may be understood as courteously assuming 
that both the conditions and the result are realized in them. 
The objection sometimes taken to this view, that it is contra- 
dicted by the hortative style of the previous context, overlooks 
the fact that apostolic zeal and intercessions, no less than. 
apostolic joy and thanksgivings, are ever quickened by the 
fidelity of the churches.t At all events, the mere structure 
of the verse would be better represented thus: ‘for these 
things being yours’—yours in real and abiding possession {— 
‘and abounding’—or rather zucreasing,§ the natural conse- 
quence of the possession ; what is meant is not their present 
abundance, or their present superiority in that respect to 
others,|| but their own continual growth in grace—‘ these 
things being yours, and increasing, make you’—vrender, consti- 
tute you, establish your character as **—‘ not zdle nor unfruit- 
ful in’—or as to— the true knowledget} of our Lord Fesus 
Christ. 

The Lord Himself had spoken again and again of laborers 
‘standing zd/e in the market-place,’ doing no useful work for 
God or man. And in another parable He had described the 
thorny-ground hearer, in whom ‘the cares of this world and 
the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becometh 
wifruitful’—an image that frequently recurs in His discourses. 
Now, we can well believe that Peter, having heard both these 





* Erasmus and Vatablus change the Vulgate sz adsivt into cum adsint ; and 
so Dietlein and Huther have zjzdem for Luther’s wo. 

+ Comp. Rom. 1: 8-11; Eph. 1: 15-18; Col. 1: 3-10; 1 and 2 Thess. 
throughout, etc. 

{ ὑμῖν ὑπάρχοντα, (Lachmann παρόντα, after A.) 

ὃ πλεονάζοντα. Comp. I Thess. 3: 12. 

|| Wahl: ‘nobis... magis insunt quam in aliis.’ 
** καϑίστησι. Comp. James 4 : 4, (Greek.) tt εἰς τὴν ἐπίγνωσιν. 


Lecture IV —Chapter 1 : 8-11. 381 


expressions from the lips of his Master, and remembering 
them still, intentionally availed himself of them in the present 
admonition to his brethren. That any after being sent into 
the vineyard, where the work is so urgent and the wages are 
so bountiful, should idle still even under the eye of the 
Householder—that no fruit should be found on trees planted 
by the rivers of water, in the rich soil of grace—this strikes 
the Apostle as something unnatural and monstrous. Better 
far that they had been left to grow wild in the rank luxuriance 
of their native forest. Better far that they had continued to 
stand the rest of the day ‘idle in the market-place.’ Their 
shame would have been less, and their punishment compara- 
tively light. From the greater reproach and loss nothing 
could now save them but that strenuous pursuit of holiness, 
to which they were pledged by their profession. The spirit 
of a lazy indifference to moral improvement and active well- 
doing—the absence of the Christian virtues in character and 
life—is something that cannot be reconciled with ‘the true 
knowledge of our Lord Fesus Christ, of His life, and charac- 
ter, and work, and teaching. In every one of the particulars 
before mentioned—in faith, in fortitude, in knowledge, in self- 
control, in patience, in godliness, in brotherly kindness, in 
love—He ‘left us an example, that we should follow His 
steps ;’ and no man fails to follow, without thereby belying 
his own pretensions to saving knowledge.* 

But not only is ‘the true knowledge of our Lord Fesus 
Christ’ the spring of true holiness; it is also sometimes re- 
presented as being itself in its higher experimental develop- 
ment the end and aim of the Christian life. The best evidence 
that can be given of ‘knowing’ the Lord is to ‘follow on to 
know’ Him. Thus all along through Paul’s apostolic career, 
and long after he had been caught up to the third heaven, it 
continued still to be the dearest object of his ambition, ‘that 
he might know’ Christ; and not until that which is perfect 
comes did he hope to see Him as He is, and so to ‘know even 
as also he was known,’ ἢ Now, there is a peculiarity in the 

* Matt. 20 "2. Ὁ; 5.325" Mare 419): Luke: 13): 6,7 ; Ps..1/4.3\5' ἘΔ: 


B20, 
7) los. 61: 9 Pinky 2.3 ΧΟ ΣῈ [ΟἿ 9.1 2.5 Ὁ Cor, 12 510) 12. 


382 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


phraseology of this eighth verse, that has led some* to regard 
_ this idea of the believer’s perpetual advance in knowledge as 
the one chiefly intended by the writer, as if he had said: 
‘ These things being yours, and increasing, render you not idle 
nor unfruitful as regards your onward progress znto the know- 
ledge of our Lord Fesus Christ’ One sure result of your faith- 
ful cultivation and enlargement of practical holiness will be 
to increase the range and clearness of your spiritual vision. 


The statement we have just considered, whichever of these 
two views be taken of it, receives a negative illustration and 
proof in the ninth verse: ‘ or’ t—not but—‘ he that lacketh 
these things’—or, as this case of the barren professor zs really 
put hypothetically,t he that should lack these things—‘ts blind, 
He may say that he sees. He may even claim to be a spe- 
cially knowing person, a guide of the blind, a light of them 
which are in darkness. 

But all the while he knows not that he himself is blind— 
knowing nothing yet as he ought to know. As another 
Apostle says of the man, who, destitute of the one grace of 
brotherly kindness, hateth his brother, he ‘is in darkness, and 
walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, be- 
cause that darkness hath blinded his eyes.’ § 

But why, then, is it immediately added, ‘ avd cannot see afar 
off’? Many || would avoid the apparent tautology, or rather 
the implied contradiction, by translating the one word for 
which this stands, shutting his eyes, the blindness being vol- 
untary. There are reasons,** however, why it may be thought 


* Bede, De Wette, Briickner, Huther. Fronmiiller combines this with the 
other view. 

+ Our Version nowhere else translates γάρ dwt, except in 1 Pet. 4 : 15, (see 
p- 292, note },) and once, Rom. 5 : 7, it has yet. 

+ As shown by the conditional μή, (see p. 193, note *.) 

Sohn Ὁ 41. Rom, 2: 195 Rev: 3) 1735 Ὁ ΘΟ 9: 2; ΠΟ 2 O mee 

; From Stephens to Peile. 
** Μυωπάζω (in the New Testament found only here) comes immediately, not 
from μύω and ὦψ, but from μύωψ ; one who,‘in order to see an object, is compelled 
by a defect in the organ to wink, or contract the eyelids. See also Aristotle’s 
definition of the μυωπάζοντες in Probl. sect. 31.—The Vulgate and a few later 
versions (Tyndale, Erasmus, Calvin, etc.) follow the gloss ψηλαφῶν, groping. 


- 


Lecture IV—Chapter τ: 8-11. 383 


better to retain the idea of our Common Version, and to re- 
concile the two clauses thus: ‘He zs blind, being near-sighted 
—able to look only, and that with bleared eyes, at the things 
which are seen. To the things which are not seen, but are 
far above out of his sight, to wit, the glory of Christ, the 
grand object of the saving knowledge just spoken of, he is 
indeed blind, stone-blind.’ According to the terrible descrip- 
tion given of such in Jude’s Epistle, ‘he speaks evil of those 
things which he knows not: but what he knows naturally, as 
a brute beast, in those things he @orrupts himself.’ * 

‘ Having forgotten’—it is then said in the last place, as if 
there could be no sadder feature in the case than this—‘ ¢he 
cleansing away of his old sins ;’ such is more nearly the form 
of the clause in the Greek.t Those ‘o/d szus’ belonged to 
what was spoken of in the First Epistle as ‘your vain walk 
handed down from your fathers,’ or ‘the former lusts in your 
ignorance,’ of which a specimen is also given there in the 
fourth chapter.t Now, there may have been a time when the 
person supposed was under real conviction of sin; when sin 
and its expiation were the subject of his daily and most 
anxious thoughts, and the multiplied sacrifices of the idola- 
ters could, he well knew, bring his troubled conscience no 
relief. Turning from them with disdain, he hastened toward 
the new altar of the Church, and its one great ‘ propitiation 
for the sins of the whole world,’ and there at the summons of 
the preacher was ‘ baptized,’ according to Peter’s own word, on 
the day of Pentecost, ‘for the remission of sins.’ But in this 
case, as in numberless similar ἃ cases both then and since, the 
confession of the mouth had not been prompted by any liv- 
ing faith of the heart. Ere long his spiritual impressions 
faded, former associations reasserted their sway, and amid 
fresh excitements of the world he lost all his interest even in 
the blood of atonement, and ‘forgot’ his own obligations to 
Divine grace, and how near he had once stood to the Saviour 
of sinners, and to the kingdom of the saved. 


* 2 Cor. 4:18; Ps. 10:5; Jude fo. 

+ λήϑην λαβὼν τοῦ καϑαρισμοῦ τῶν πάλαι αὑτοῦ ἁμαρτιῶν, (Griesbach, Scholz, 
Tischendorf, read ἁμαρτημάτων after Sin. A, J.) 

fh Theta 17. 19» {1Π 2) Ὡ-: § 1 John2:2; Acts 2 : 38. 


384 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


The language of the verse applies thus emphatically to an 
unrenewed man, who, after a partial and transient awakening 
and a sacramental washing away of his sins, relapses into un- 
godliness. But be it understood that just in so far as a true 
Christian at any time falls under the power of temptation, and 
yields himself a servant to sin, and so long as he continues 
therein, it may be said of him also, and with scarcely less 
truth: ‘He zs blind, being near-sighted, having forgotten the 
cleansing away of his old sins’ The dimness or the extinc- 
tion of the soul’s perception of Divine things is related both 
as cause and effect to an unholy life. Especially is such a 
life incompatible with a due remembrance of Calvary, of God’s 
pardoning mercy and our justified state. 


On these’ representations, then, on the one hand, δῇ the 
necessity, honor, and blessing of virtue and godliness, and, 
on the other hand, of the curse and shame of their opposites, 
the Apostle resumes with increased urgency his work of ex- 
hortation. 

‘ Wherefore the rather, brethren’—this title of address, which 
does not occur elsewhere in Peter’s Epistles, is an expression 
at once of his love and of his earnestness— Wherefore the 
rather, seeing that on your faithful compliance depend the 
credit and profit of your Christian profession, ‘ be diligent* to 
make your calling and election sure. 

By ‘calling and election’ here, it is obvious enough, we are 
not to understand merely the outward call of men by the Gos- 
pel, nor yet their gathering within the pale of the visible 
Church, since both these are facts, which no diligence can 
make surer than they already are; nor can it be that the 
Apostle would have his brethren to be solicitous merely about 
their perpetuation. The calling is none other than that which 
the Catechisms of the Church distinguish as Effectual Call- 
ing—‘the work of God’s Spirit, whereby, convincing us of 
our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge 
of Christ, and renewing our wills, He doth persuade and 
enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the 


* cnovddcare—the same word as in ch. 3 : 143 Tit. 3 : 12. 


Lecture IV —Chapter 1 : 8-11. 385 


Gospel. And the election is the eternal act of God’s sove- 
reign grace whereby some are ordained to everlasting life. 
The two are inseparably united ; the calling in every instance 
following the election, and the election in every instance pre- 
ceding the calling. ‘Whom God did predestinate, them He 
also called.’* But inasmuch as men must reason back from 
the calling to the election, and know absolutely nothing of 
the latter independently and ὦ Beat 1, therefore the calling is 
here mentioned first. 

What, then, is it “20 make our calling and election sure’? 
Certainly it is not to strengthen God’s immutable purpose, or 
to have our names reinscribed more legibly in the Lamb’s 
book of life. It is simply, as the whole context shows, to 
confirm the inference as drawn especially by ourselves} from 
the appearance to the reality—from the effect to the cause— 
from the stream to its hidden sources—from the quality of the 
fruit to the nature of the tree and the soundness of its root— 
from a good life to a gracious condition. One principal means 
of judging of the latter is by the former. Again and again 
had Peter himself addressed these brethren as an ‘elect race’ 
—‘elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, 
But he spoke from no secret revelation made to him on that 
point, but from what was properly implied in their Church 
standing, joined to what he knew of their manifestations of 
a Christian character—their faith of the word which in the 
Gospel had been preached unto them and their establishment 
therein, their reformation of manners, their living hope, their 
love to an unseen Saviour and to their fellow-disciples, their 
joy in the midst of suffering for His sake.t So Paul de- 
clared his confidence in the election of the Thessalonians 
from what he remembered of their work of faith, and labor 
of love, and patience of hope. And so John knew that he 
had ‘passed from death unto life’ not because he had lain in 
the Lord’s bosom, but because he ‘loved the brethren.’ § 

* Rom. ὃ : 30. 

t Observe the use of the middle, βεβαίαν---ποιεῖσϑε, and compare the ἔχομεν 
βεβαιότερον of v. 19. 

+ Comp. 1 Pet. I : 2 (pp. 13-26) and 2:9 with I : 5-0, 21, 22; 2:73; 4:45 
eet. Ge Σ 12: 

§ 1 Thess. 1 : 3, 4, (comp. Lect. on Thess. pp. 55-61 ;) 1 John 3 : 14, (εἰς.) 


386 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


Just in proportion, then, as believers were enabled to mul- 
tiply and brighten these evidences of a genuine conversion, 
might it be said that they made sure both their conversion it- 
self and God’s thought of love toward them from eternity. 
They themselves would attain to a blessed assurance,’ and 
none of their brethren or teachers would have occasion to say 
to them, as Paul said to the Galatians, ‘I stand in doubt of 
you.* The connection between election and conversion is 
sure—as sure as God’s unchangeable love can make it ; but it 
is not surer than is the connection between conversion and a 
renewed life. Our pursuit of holiness may, indeed, be im- 
peded and interrupted through the weakness of the flesh; but 
to the same extent does the dimness of a cloud return on the 
question of our conversion and election. And hence the sub- 
stitution in this roth verse of the exhortation to ‘make our 
calling and election sure’ for the previous exhortation to ‘ fur- 
nish in faith fortitude; and in fortitude, knowledge; and in 
knowledge, self-control ; and in self-control, patience ; and in 
patience, godliness ; and in godliness, brotherly kindness ; and 
in brotherly kindness, love. Some have even read the pre- 
sent clause thus: ‘Be diligent that by means of your good 
works ye may make your calling and election sure’t But 
even without this precarious addition it is evident that the 
writer regarded the one exhortation as equivalent to the 
other. And this appears again from what immediately fol- 
lows : 

‘For, doing ἢ these things, ye shall never fall’—shall never 
so ‘stumble that ye should fall” As the Psalmist has it: 
‘Great peace have they which love Thy law: there is to 
them no stumbling-block. ὃ Singularly emphatic, too, is our 
Apostle’s own negative: ‘Ye shall not. by any means fall 
ever.’ || A good life can never prove a failure. It may bea 
life of many storms ; but it is not possible that it should end 
in shipwreck. 


Ἐπ ΑἸ 1 5.20: 

| The reading, σπουδ. iva διὰ τῶν καλῶν ὑμῶν ἔργων... ποιῆσϑε (A, Vulg. 
Bede) is edited by Lachmann. Sin. iva διὰ τῶν καλῶν ἔργων... ποιεῖσϑε. 

{ ποιοῦντες. § Rom. 11: 11; Ps. 119 : 165, (Hebrew.) 


|| οὐ μὴ πταΐσητέ ποτε. 


Lecture IV—Chapter 1 : 8-11. 387 


Nor is that all that can be said of it. Rather it is the very 
least. ‘By patient continuance in well doing’ the children of 
God ‘seek,’ not only exemption from the doom of the ungod- 
ly, but ‘glory and honor and immortality ;’* and they shall 
not miss their aim. ‘for so an entrance shall be ministered 
unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord 
and Saviour Fesus Christ. 

It was formerly mentioned that the word here rendered 20 
minister is the same that occurs in the 5th verse, and which 
we there rendered 20 furnish.t{ The point is worth noting, 
because it brings out a little more distinctly that principle 
of a gracious reciprocity, on which our Lord condescends to 
deal with His servants. ‘Furnish in your faith, and that in 
an ever-growing measure, the fruits of faith in a pious and 
useful life, and ‘so there shall be richly furnished unto you the 
entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour 
Fesus Christ. ὁ Bountiful sowing shall be followed by boun- 
tiful reaping.§ As the Lord Himself earnestly taught His 
disciples: ‘Give, and it shall be given unto you; good mea- 
sure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, 
shall men give into your bosom,’ or rather indefinitely sha// 
they give, || or shall be given, into your bosom ; for He thought 
not of any earthly and temporal, but of the heavenly and eter- 
nal recompenses. 

And here again we learn in what those recompenses shall 
consist. For the promise of our text does not refer to con- 
tinuous supplies of present grace, though Calvin so explains 
it, but to the ultimate object of the Christian hope. And 
that is a Aingdom—‘ the everlasting kingdom of ‘our Lord and 
Saviour Fesus Christ’—the kingdom bequeathed to Him by 
the Father, yet to be established by Him throughout the do- 
main of the curse, and in which He shall eternally reign King 
of kings—the kingdom of holiness, and love, and beauty. 
That was ‘the joy set before Him,’ and toward which He 
struggled in the days of His flesh through tears and blood. 


* Rom. 2: 7. Tt See p. 370. E 

ἐ πλουσίως (as in Col. 3: 16; 1 Tim. 6 : 17) ἐπιχορηγηϑήσεται ὑμῖν ἡ (omitted 
in Sin.) εἴσοδος. 

Saou Cor): Ὁ); Gal 6᾽ - ὃ: || Luke 6 : 38, (δώσουσιν.) 


388 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


He Himself even then called it His ‘joy.’ And into that joy 
none shall ‘enter’ as joint heirs with Him but those whom He 
has redeemed and made meet. Still, considered merely in its 
human aspects, the salvation of any is a work of~exceeding 
difficulty. ‘The righteous scarcely are, saved.’ But some, 
as compared with others, are ‘saved so as through fire. They 
will slink into the kingdom, if we might venture so to say, as 
by some postern. Very different is ‘the entrance’ described 
in our text, and reserved for those who are both ‘called, and 
chosen, and faithful’ To them ‘che entrance shall be richly 
furnished’ They will not come unheralded nor unattended.. 
‘Their works follow with them ;’* or as that thought has been 
paraphrased by our great Christian poet : 


‘Their works and alms and all their good endeavor 
Staid not behind, nor in the grave were trod ; 
But as Faith pointed with her golden rod, 

Followed them up to joy and bliss for ever.’ + 


At their approach, with all their shining train, the everlast- 
ing doors open wide. Harp and song proclaim their welcome ; 
and there is high festival in the presence of God and His 
angels, 


The eleven verses that we nave now reviewed are a re- 
markable instance of the flow and fervor of apostolic utter- 
ance.t Like the Nile, the Epistle starts full, strong, and 
rapid from the very source. One could hardly find another 
passage containing within the same limits a clearer and more 
exuberant statement of Christian privilege and obligation, or 
a more distinct assertion by implication of the harmony ex- 
isting between Divine decree and human responsibility, be- 
tween God’s all-providing, all-suffering grace and the neces- 
sity of man’s unremitting efforts on his own behalf. The 
whole passage is a fine illustration of the way in which 


* Web. 12: 2; Matt. 25: 21; 1 Pet. 4:18: 1 Cor. 3 2155) Rev. ΠΡ: 
14 : 13, (ἀκολουϑεῖ μετ’ αὐτῶν.) 

t+ Milton, sonnet xiv. 

t The παῤῥησία, in which Peter delighted, and seems to have excelled; Acts 
2: 295 4: 13, 29, 31, etc. 


Lecture IV —Chapter 1 : 8-11. 389 


Apostles themselves were accustomed to fulfil the charge 
that Paul laid on Titus (3: 8): ‘This is a faithful saying. 
and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they 
which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good 
works.’ 

And there are several other important lessons to be learned 
from these last four verses: as, 

1. First, that the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ and 
forgiveness of sins in His name must lie at the foundation of 
all genuine morality ; vs. 8, 9. 

2. Secondly, that all claims of an immoral man to superior 
knowledge and insight within the sphere of the highest truth 
are utterly delusive ; v. 9. 

3. Thirdly, that we are bound by our Christian calling, not 
only to abstain from every appearance of evil, but to grow in 
all that is good in the sight of God and profitable unto men. 
A stagnant life of negative decorums and proprieties is a sad 
sign of spiritual torpor and death; v. 8. 

4. Fourthly, that to aspire to certainty in regard to our sal- 
vation—to ‘the full assurance of hope’ *—is a perfectly legi- 
timate ambition for a child of God ; and that the only way of 
attaining to it is the highway of the redeemed—the way of 
holiness ; v. 10. 

5. Fifthly, that while the opening of the kingdom of hea- 
ven does not depend on our good works or on the abundance 
of them, they will yet be found to have a momentous bearing 
on the character of our entrance, and on the measure of our 
reward ; v. II. 

Finally, let us be much in the habit of considering that great 
hope of our calling—‘the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ.’ Daily, for many generations, has the Church, 
with whatever imperfect and sometimes erroneous views as to 
the meaning of the petition, been praying for the coming of 
that kingdom. And come at last it will, no shadowy phantom 
of authority, but such a realization of mighty, resistless, un- 
questioned, beneficent rule, as no heir of an earthly throne 
ever dreamed of. From sea to sea, and from the river unto the 


* Heb. 6:11. 


390 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


ends of the earth, Christ shall reign, and we shall reign with 
Him.* Blessed amends for all our wrongs and sorrows here! 
Glorious recompense of all our toil! 


* Eph.as 18: Ps. 72:8; Revoir 15: 5:10; 29 ἢν 2: Ὁ 


LECTURE V. 


2 PELE Re Ge ἡ Ζξῖν. 


‘WHEREFORE I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of 
these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth. Yea, 
I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you 
in remembrance ; knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as 
our Lord Jesus Christ hath showed me. Moreover I will endeavor that ye may 
be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance.’ 


In these verses the Apostle avows and justifies his settled 
purpose to do whatever lay in his power for the perpetuation 
among his brethren of the great truths on which he had been 
insisting. These truths respected the privileges already be- 
stowed on them by the glorious and mighty grace of God— 
the obligation which those privileges involved to universal 
holiness—the ignominy and ruin attending a failure to meet 
the obligation—and the blessings consequent on fidelity, in 
the present confirmation of their calling and election, and in 
their future triumphant entrance into the everlasting kingdom 
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 

‘ Wherefore’—on all these accounts, though the reference 
may be immediately to the last-mentioned considerations— 
‘T will not be negligent’—or, according to the reading pre- 
ferred by many, J will be sure*—‘to remind} you always of 
these things. It has been supposed by somef that this is 


* So Alford renders the reading μελλήσω (Sin. A, B, C, Vulg.) adopted by 
himself and Wordsworth, Bengel, Lachmann, Tischendorf, instead of οὐκ ἀμελή- 
ow. Several of these also read ἀεὶ before ὑμᾶς. Sin. det περὶ τούτων ὑπομιμνή- 
σκειν ὑμᾶς. 

ἱ ὑπομιμνήσκειν. 1 Griesbach, De Wette. 


392 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


spoken by anticipation of the topic that comes prominently 
into view at the 16th verse, to wit, the future coming and 
kingdom of our Lord. But it is more natural to find here 
also, as already in the 8th, oth, and 1oth verses, a continuous 
allusion to what precedes, and in this instance to what has 
been said in regard to both the standing and duties of Chris- 
tians. 

‘These things, the writer admits, were not novelties to 
those whom he addressed. On the contrary, he was well 
aware of what he is no less glad to acknowledge, that they not 
only ‘kzew them’ as essential parts of the Christian doctrine, 
but were themselves ‘established in the present truth? The 
truth is so called as having ‘come to’ them in the preaching 
of the Gospel, and as being now ‘nigh them, even in their 
mouth, and in their heart.’ Or as John speaks of the truth as 
‘dwelling in us, and being with us for ever.’ * 

Now, in that heavenly, saving truth the first readers of this 
Epistle were, Peter says, ‘established, as in the former letter 
(5 : 12) he had testified that they then ‘stood in the true 
grace of God.’ Their original convictions had been strength- 
ened by subsequent experience. Extricated from the dark, 
wandering mazes of heathen error wherein they had so long 
been lost, they still exulted, and that with unabated, nay, grow- 
ing delight, in the light of life, and in the freedom wherewith 
‘the truth had made them free.’ They had, indeed, suffered 
for their faith, and in their faith had found abundant sources 
of support and consolation under the trial. As good soldiers 
of Jesus Christ, they had ‘endured hardness,’ and might well 
be regarded as having attained to something of the stability 
of veterans in the service.f 


‘But’ for all that, says the Apostle, ‘ 7 think zt meet’—right, 
due to you, and something to which my very office binds me 
—‘so long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by way of 
remembrance. + They were not yet made perfect, and they 


* Col. 1:6, (τοῦ παρόντος εἰς ὑμᾶς 3) Rom. 10:9; 2 John 2. 
ti John ὃ: 22.5.2 Tim. 2 : 3. 
1 δίκαιον dd... ἐν ὑπομνήσει, (as in ch. 3:1; Sin. here: ἐν τῇ ὑπομ.) 


Lecture V—Chapter 1 : 12-15. 393 


were still beset by manifold temptations to backsliding and 
apostasy. Notwithstanding present favorable appearances, 
they too might some time be in danger of denying God’s mer- 
ciful dealings with them in the past, or the spirit of oblivion, 
of carnal security and slumber, might steal upon them un- 
awares. And therefore the Apostle could not, as a debtor to 
all men, and especially to his brethren,* satisfy his sense of 
obligation except by plying them with frequent, constant ad- 
monition. They must not feel hurt, or think it strange that 
one letter so soon followed another, both filled with earnest 
exhortation and warning. This was only beginning to do what 
he meant to do always, and so long as he lived, namely, ‘ zo 
remind then of these things ;’ and, lest they should be either 
lulled or wearied by the formality of a continual repetition, his 
aim would be ‘iz reminding to stir them up, thoroughly to 
arouse them from sleep, and every tendency to sleep,j and so 
to keep them alert and vigilant, habitually conscious of the 
love of God, on their guard against Satan’s devices, and mind- 
ful of their own high calling. To such urgency of ministerial 
fidelity Peter felt himself constrained, as well by the nature 
of the solemn charge committed to him, and whose responsi- 
bilities would cease only with his life, as by the momentous- 
ness of the interests at stake. 


But there was yet another consideration that impelled him 
to this course, and would certainly be allowed to excuse any 
appearance of unnecessary solicitude on his part ; and that 
was the little time that remained to him for the exercise of his 
apostolic functions: ‘ Knowzng, he says, ‘that shortly I must 
put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Fesus Christ hath 
showed me, or, as also our Lord Fesus Christ showed me. 

Here again, as in the 13th verse, the present body is meta- 
phorically described as a ¢abernacle or tent, as being the resi- 
dence at once-frail and temporary of the immortal soul, though 


* Rom. 1: 14; Luke 22: 32. 

ἱ Comp. the use of the word (διεγείρειν) in Matt. 1:24; 4:38, 39; Luke 
8:24; John6:18. It nowhere else occurs in the New Testament, except as 
above, and in ch. 3: I. 

t καϑὼς kai... ἐδήλωσε. 


304 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


the other part of the phrase, to put off this tabernacle, might 
seem to represent it as a garment.* Some, accordingly, do 
find here the same mixture of metaphors that occurs in 2 Cor. 
5 : 1-4, where the dissolution of ‘our earthly house of this 
tabernacle’ is spoken of as a being ‘unclothed.’ But in the 
case before us this combination need not be assumed. Closely 
rendered, the clause might be given thus: ‘ Knowing that 
speedy 15 the laying aside of my tabernacle’—speedy, that is, in 
its approach, and soon to be expected ; or speedy in its exe- 
cution, sudden.t It is even probable that both ideas were 
in the mind of the writer. As an old man, Peter knew that 
his death could not be far off, and he knew a/so from his 
Lord’s prophecy recorded in the last chapter of John’s Gospel, 
that he was not to live out all his days: ‘When thou shalt be 
old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird 
thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake 
he,’ adds the Evangelist, ‘signifying by what death he should 
glorify God.” There is no necessity, therefore, for supposing, 
as some t have done, a later revelation on the subject. The 
Apostle’s already advanced age, and the recollection of his 
risen Lord’s word to him by the Sea of Tiberias, were suffi- 
cient of themselves, without reference even to the threatening 
aspect of the times, to assure him, as Paul too felt assured in 
his own case when about the same period he wrote his Second 
Epistle to Timothy, that ‘the time of his departure was at 
hand’—the crown of martyrdom almost within his grasp. 
His season of labor, therefore, being now so nearly exhausted, 
Peter must use all the more strenuously the little that was 
left, and he addresses his brethren with the impressiveness 
and tender authority of a dying man. With his own violent 
death in immediate prospect, his anxieties are not for himself, 
but for them. His prophetic eye is turned rather toward the 
more distant perilous future of the Church; and hence what 
follows in the next verse. 


* Acts 7:58. In the New Testament the noun is found only in these Epistles, 
(1 Pet. sieei1:) 

+ The latter explanation is given by Bengel, Bretschneider, Huther. The 
word (ταχινός) occurs a second time in the New Testament at ch. 3 : I. 

t Estius, De Wette, Briickner, etc 


Lecture V-—Chapter τ: 12-15. 395 


‘ Moreover’—or simply bu¢:* not only do I think it right, 
so long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by way of 
remembrance, uf, etc.; or: Wotwithstanding what 1 know 
respecting my speedy death, and for that reason—‘/ wad/ e- 
deavor that ye may even at all times’—in every emergency— 
‘be ablet after my decease’—exodus,i as the word is, or depar- 
tuve—‘ to call these things to mind’§ There was therefore 
still less occasion for surprise that the writer, while fully aware 
of his readers’ knowledge of, and establishment in, the truth, 
yet continued to labor, and should labor on to the last, in its 
inculcation. He had an ulterior object in all this; and that 
was, through the permanency of the written word, to provide 
them with an ever ready means of detecting the imposture, 
and resisting the seductive wiles, of the false teachers who 
should arise, and against whom, accordingly, is directed the 
volleyed thunder of the second chapter. He may even have 
intended that this should be followed by still other commu- 
nications of his own.|| At least, this is more probable than 
that he was thinking, as some have suggested, either of men 
whom he would ordain for the carrying forward of his work,** 
or of a Gospel to be brought out, as that of Mark is 58:1} to 
have been, under his auspices. 


1. From the example of our great Apostle, as he himself sets 
it before us in these verses, we perceive what was one grand 
design of Christ in the institution of the Gospel ministry. It 
was not that there might be a class of men provided with the 
necessary leisure and accomplishments for pushing their 
researches into all unexplored regions, inventing ever new 
systems of philosophy, leading the churches along in untrod- 
den paths of speculative inquiry, or regaling them with the 
unsubstantial fancies of their own imagination. Theirs was 
to be a less ambitious, but in reality a more noble as well as 


* δέ, 

+ καὶ ἑκάστοτε ἔχειν dudc.—Only Griesbach and Scholz cancel the καί. Many 
err in attaching it to orovddow, (Sin. orovddlw.)—éxdorore occurs nowhere else in 
the New Testament. 

téfodov. Comp. Luke 9: 31; Heb. 11 : 22 
8 τὴν τούτων μνήμην ποιεῖσϑαι. || Ὡς Wette. ** Huther. 


396 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


a more profitable office. It was to remind the churches of 
what they had already been taught, and by all appropriate 
motives to s¢zr them up to ‘give the more earnest heed to the 
things which they had heard, lest at any time they should let 
them slip.’ * Obviously the work is one of no little difficulty. 
Very much both of prayer and painstaking is needed to save 
it from sinking down into the wearisomeness and impotency 
of a monotonous reiteration. Nor is it greatly to be wondered 
at that in the hands to which it is too often committed it fails 
disastrously. 

But then, on the other hand, it is by itself no proof at all 
that the work is prospering, that a crowd follows the preach- 
er. The liveliest interest may pervade the congregation, 
when in the pulpit there is the scantiest exhibition of the 
apostolic themes; and no failure can be more disastrous, as 
there are very few so criminal. How many ‘itching ears’ of 
our day are drawn to the sanctuary by no higher motive than 
that which led the Athenians to the market-place—the desire 
to ‘hear some new thing’! When there is no longer any 
hope of hearing that, their attendance becomes more and 
more fitful, and by and by perhaps they disappear altogether. 

This low, foolish humor the primitive teachers were little 
careful to gratify. That a thing was known was no reason to 
them why it should not be repeated. ‘And I myself am per- 
suaded of you, my brethren,’ says Paul to the Romans, ‘that 
ye also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able 
also to admonish one another. Nevertheless, brethren, I 
have written the more boldly unto you in some sort, as 
putting you in mind.’ And again to the Philippians: ‘To 
write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, 
but for you it is safe.’ In like manner we read in John’s First 
Epistle: ‘I have not written unto you because ye know not 
the truth, but because ye know it ;’ and even John’s love for 
his little children would be satisfied, if ‘that abode in them, 
which ,they heard from the beginning.’ Equally striking is 
the expression of Jude, whose Epistle is in so many things 


FV Eleb. 2 ish 1s 1 2 Tim. 4:36 Acts ΤΣ. ΞΙ ΖΕ, 


Lecture V—Chapter 1 : 12-15. 397 


an echo, as it were, of our own: ‘But I wish to remind you, 
you who once for all know this.’ * ; 

If, then, the maturest and best instructed churches of the 
apostolic age required thus ‘precept upon precept, precept 
upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, 
and there a little, humility and patience under the word 
would surely be becoming in an age whose average intelli- 
gence of revealed truth is, I fear, in spite of all our tracts and 
Sunday-schools, and to some extent by reason of these very 
things, of an exceedingly flimsy sort, and when the generality 
of church-goers are, as to all.the deeper things of the Spirit, 
‘dull of hearing, and have need that one teach them again 
which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are 
become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.’ + 


2. I would have you notice, in the second place, the Apos- 
tle’s way of looking at the present life. In the former Epistle 
(1:1, 17; 2: 11) he had exhorted his brethren as ‘strangers 
and pilgrims’ (foreiguers and sojourners 1) to ‘pass the time of 
their sojourning in fear... Here he speaks as one who him- 
self partook largely of the pilgrim spirit. This body, for 
whose wants and satisfaction most men provide as anxiously 
as if it were ‘the whole of man,’§ he ever remembered was 
but a tent for transient occupancy—a tent to be laid aside, 
as suitable only for the wilderness—a tent from within whose 
dim, though slight, inclosuré he would shortly be called to go 
forth into another state of existence, where the humility of 
the tabernacle should in due season be exchanged for the 
glory of the temple, ‘the building of God, the house not 
made with hands, eternal in the heavens. || 

And is not just this or position, this our expectation, still? 
Let us as calmly, as gladly, as habitually, recognize and con- 
fess the fact. We too ‘have here no continuing city,’ and with 
us too ‘the time is short.’ ‘The night is far spent, the day is 
at hand.’ And while our Lord Jesus Christ has showed to us 


* Rom. 15 : 14,15; Phil. 3:1; 1 John2: 21,24; Jude 5 (ὑπομνῆσαι δὲ ὑμᾶς 
βούλομαι, εἰδότας ὑμᾶς ἅπαξ τοῦτο. See the notes on that verse in the Revision. ) 

iy Iss: 28°: 10; ἘΠΕ ps ΣΕΥ 12: 

t See p. 128. ὃ Prove 12: 123. ΖΦ Gora 5.τὰ. 


398 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


neither the precise period and manner of our departure, nor 
the hour of His own return, every individual knows as surely 
as did Peter, that for him too the one or the other of these 
events is nigh, even at the door. Let us, then, be up and 
stirring in the service of God and our brethren. And ‘ what- 
soever our hand findeth to do’ for Christ and His Church, 
‘let us do it with our might ; for there is no work, nor device, 
nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither we go.’* 
Oh! for grace to spend every day as if it were to be, as it may 
be, our last. 


3. One other lesson plainly enough taught by this passage 
is the tmportance—the necessity—for the stability and edifica- 
tion of the Church, not only of the living ministry, but like- 
wise of Scripture. The wisdom of God did not think it good 
to intrust the heavenly doctrine to the keeping of oral tradi- 
tion. True, that doctrine was by the Apostles ‘committed to 
faithful men,’ and by them to their successors, who should be 
‘able to teach others also.’ But at the same time both the 
teachers and the taught were furnished, in the evangelical 
records and the apostolic writings, with an abiding, unvary- 
ing, infallible standard for the testing of all tradition, and for 
the trial of every spirit. 

This Divine economy is well exemplified in the case of 
Peter. While life lasted, there was no relaxation of the 
official activity that distinguished him at an earlier date, 
when we read of him ‘passing’ in the exercise of his min- 
istry ‘throughout all quarters.’ The very last hint that the 
New Testament gives as to his whereabouts seems to place 
him in his old age at Babylon in the remote east.§ Every- 
where he fulfilled with the earnest utterance of the living 
voice the purpose of ministerial zeal that is here expressed : 
‘Twill not be negligent to remind you always of these things, 
though ye know them, and are established in the present truth ; 
but 7 think it right, so long as Tam in this tabernacle, to stir 
you up in reminding. Now, however, that death was near, 


* Heb. 13 : 145 1 Cor. 7: 29; Rom. 13 : 12; Eccl. 9; 10. 
(2m ere OhnyA cere + Acts 9 : 32. § See p. 333- 


Lectuve V—Chaptey 1:12-15. 399 


and the churches should see his face no more, he would con- 
sult for their future safety also, amidst the rising floods of 
persecution and heresy, by leaving them the legacy of his 
Epistles, ‘that they might even at all times be able after his 
departure to call these things to mind. 

In these imperishable documents ‘he being dead yet speak- 
eth’—has spoken to the successive generations of the faith- 
ful, and speaks still in loving earnestness and solemn warning 
to the churches of the present day. To no past age, indeed, 
has the very Epistle now before us been more wonderfully 
adapted in all its parts ‘for doctrine, for reproof, for correc- 
tion, for instruction in righteousness,’ than it is, as we may 
see by and by, to our own. Seriously pondered, it will re- 
mind us of some mighty truths, that were once very familiar 
and very dear to all who bore the name of our Lord, but 
which have since well-nigh vanished from the memory of 
Christians. 


LECTURE “VI. 


2\PETER 1‘: 16-18. 


‘For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known 
unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye-witnesses 
of His majesty. For He received from God the Father honor and glory, when 
there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved 
Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we 
heard, when we were with Him in the holy mount.’ 


THESE verses, with what follows to the end of the chapter, 
are intended to justify the preceding expressions of the writ- 
er’s solicitude that his brethren, both while he lived and after 
his death, should be kept ever mindful of what he had just 
been saying respecting the necessity of their living in a man- 
ner suitable to the grace they had received, and to the hope 
which they cherished of an inheritance in the everlasting 
kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The justifi- 
cation turns on the certainty of the apostolic testimony in 
regard to what is here called ‘the power and coming of our 
Lord Fesus Christ ;? and the certainty of that is represented 
as resting on two pillars, the apostolic experience on the 
mount of Transfiguration, and the prophetic word. 

This mere statement of the connection is sufficient to set 
aside the notion which refers ‘ the power and coming’ spoken 
of to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans.* No- 
where in Scripture is that catastrophe described as the com- 
ing of Christ, any more than the similar catastrophes in the 
days of Nebuchadnezzar and Antiochus are so distinguished. 


* Hammond. 


Lecture VI—Chapter 1 : 16-18. 401 


Nor is it true that that event was in any sense the burden of 
apostolic preaching, or a consideration specially urged upon 
Christians as a motive to holy living. Nor was there any 
connection between it and the Transfiguration. Besides, 
wherever in the New Testament the word rendered coming * 
is used of Christ or of any other person, it invariably denotes, 
not a figurative, but an actual, personal presence. 

Accordingly, it is more common to suppose that by the 
phrase ‘fower and coming’ Peter intended Christ’s. first ap- 
pearance in the flesh, and the mighty works which He then 
wrought in attestation of His claims.+ But neither is this 
view at all satisfactory. It does not explain why the particu- 
lar scene on the mount should alone have been selected from 
the numberless other scenes quite as well fitted to establish 
the reality of the incarnation. Nor was power by any means 
the distinctive characteristic of the first coming, but rather 
weakness, temptation, sorrow. Not until He had risen from 
the dead, and ascended up far above all heavens, that He 
might fill all things, did He take His seat at the right hand 
of power, all power being then given unto Him in heaven and 
in earth. And we know that this His present state of exalta- 
tion is in order to a yet future coming—a ‘coming,’ as He 
Himself describes it, ‘in the clouds of heaven with power.’ 
That will be the revelation of ‘the glory of His power’—the 
‘coming in His kingdom ’—when the Father's purpose in the 
exaltation of the Son shall be fully accomplished, and ‘at the 
name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and 
things in earth, and things under the earth, and every tongue 
shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God 
the Father.’ ἢ 

It seems strange, therefore, that there should have been any 
mistaking of our Apostle’s meaning. His own great pente- 
costal discourses supply, one would say, all the commentary 
that is needed. ‘This Jesus hath God raised up. Therefore 
being by the right hand of God exalted . . . God hath made 


* magovoia. See Lect. on Thess. p. 519. . 

+ Cajetan, Calvin, Grotius, Pareus, Whitby, etc. 

} Eph. 4:10; Matt. 26:64; 23; 18; 24:30; 2 Thess. 1:9; Luke 23; 42, 
(év ;) Phil. 2 ; 10,11, 


402 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and 
Christ. . . . And His name, through faith in His name, hath 
made this man strong.’ So great already was, and such is 
now, ‘¢he power’ of Him who was dead. And then Peter 
would immediately go on to tell of God being about to ‘send 
Jesus Christ’ again, ‘whom,’ said he, ‘the heaven must re- 
ceive until the times of restitution of all things, which God 
hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the 
world began.’ That will be ‘¢he coming of our Lord $esus 
Christ. And to this His ‘power and coming’ the Apostles, 
wherever they went, and in whatever presence they stood of 
Jews or Gentiles, of priests or princes or people, bore their 
harmonious and unfaltering os 

Now, says Peter, ‘ wen we’—we Apostles ; not necessarily 
Peter in person—‘ made known’ all this ‘unto you, we had 
not ourselves ‘followed’—gone astray after |—‘ cunningly de- 
vised fables, or myths—the very word branded by the effront- 
ery of modern infidelity on nearly the entire gospel history. 
Of fables, whether devised by poetry, or philosophy, or super- 
stition, or fraud, with regard, for instance, to the origin, ap- 
pearances, and doings, of the gods, the world was then full 
even to weariness. And the heathen mythology itself found 
more than its match in the gigantic and grotesque extrava- 
gancies of Jewish speculation. From these and other kin- 
dred sources of corruption the primitive Christianity received 
a taint which ate as doth a canker, and increased unto more 
ungodliness.£ But from every admixture of this sort—from 
baseless fictions of the human reason or fancy—the teaching 
of Apostles, both historical and prophetic, about Jesus Christ 
was free. There was not the least affinity or sympathy or 
likeness between the two things ; and it may be asserted with 
confidence that whoever does not, as it were instinctively, feel 


* Acts 2 : 32, 33, 36; 3 : 16, 20,21. The hendiadys assumed by some, (Gro- 
tius, Horneius, Piscator, Bengel,) as if = the powerful coming, is better avoided. 

t ἐξακολουϑήσαντες. This word occurs again twice in this Epistle, (ch. 2 : 2, 
15,) and nowhere else in the New Testament. The ἐκ, Bengel thinks, implies 
error. The connection at least always does. 

+ Comp. 1-Tim, 1: 45.4.2: 7; 2. Tim. 2: 16, 17-3 4 3/45, Dit 1... 5 015 
18-23, etc. 


Lecture VI—Chapter 1 : 16-18. 403 


this, is not so much in need of the confutation of argument 
as he is of a spiritual sense. The evangelical doctrine was 
based upon, and indeed largely consisted of, facts that came 
under the immediate observation of the preachers—men for 
whose sober-mindedness and honesty we have the amplest 
guarantee in their lives and writings, and in their death of 
martyrdom. Nor is it difficult to discover why of all those 
acts that of the Transfiguration is here particularly men- 
tioned. 

None other bore so directly on the confirmation of the 
Church’s hope—the hope, namely, of her Lord’s everlasting 
kingdom. The eleventh verse had just held forth the pro- 
mise of an abundant entrance into that kingdom as a grand 
motive to a virtuous and godly life; and the writer, moreover, 
is already thinking of the scoffers of the last days, by whom 
this ancient hope should be assailed. But—so he seems to 
say—there is not a point in all our testimony more certain 
than that. Not only is Jesus Christ now ‘Head over all 
things to the Church,’ but He is coming again personally to 
reign; and a proof of it is, that on one memorable occasion, 
while the Man of sorrows was yet on earth, ‘ His visage so 
marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons 
of men, * a few of us were admitted, so to speak, into the in- 
terior of His kingly court, and there ‘ decame eye-witnesses of 
His majesty, + 

Evidently Peter regarded the event in question as at oncea 
pledge and a specimen of the future kingdom ; and the three 
Gospels in which the occurrence is recorded leave scarcely 
room for a doubt that the Lord Himself so intended it. In 
every one of them the narrative is introduced by the Sa- 
viour’s announcement made only about a week before, that 
some of the Apostles should ‘not taste of death, till,’ as it is 
variously expressed, ‘ they saw the kingdom of God—the king- 
dom of God come with power—the Son of man coming in 


ἘΠΕῚ ΖΦ; 5: 52 eA. 

t ἐπόπται (a word used only by Peter, but applied in classic Greek to one ini- 
tiated into the greater mysteries) γενηϑέντες τῆς ἐκείνου μεγαλειότητος. Words- 
worth suggests that both δύναμιν and μεγαλειότ. point at Simon Magus; Acts 
8:9, Io. 


404. Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


His kingdom.’ And then forthwith each Evangelist portrays 
the spectacle of the Transfiguration as, it would appear, the 
fulfilment of that promise. * 

Thus viewed, the whole scene assumes a more than historic 
interest. It gives forth also prophetic hints respecting things 
to come. 

1. May we not say that the bright overshadowing cloud was 
the very same that afterward hovered over Olivet, and in 
which our Lord is to come again ? + 

2. Then the presence within that cloud, along with the 
Saviour, of Moses who ‘died there in the land of Moab, .. . 
but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day ’—we hear 
only of a mysterious contention about his body between the 
devil and Michael the archangel—and of Elijah who, like 
Enoch, ‘was translated that he should not see death, and was 
not found, because God had translated him,’ might well re- 
present the reunion in the rendezvous of glory, in the day of © 
Christ’s appearing and kingdom, of all His saints—the dead 
saints who shall rise again, and the living who shall be chang- 
ed, and both classes caught up together to meet the Lord in 
the air.t 

3. Again, the ready recognition by the disciples of the 
identity of these two ancient worthies is no obscure hint of 
what awaits us in the day of ‘our gathering together’ into 
the Lord’s presence.§ 

4. Remember also that the glorified Saviour and His glori- 
fied servants were not at all offended even in that hour by the 
proximity, at different degrees of nearness, of imperfect men 
in the flesh ; and you will rather wonder at the impatience of 
a supercilious ignorance, that will not tolerate the idea of a 
similar association during the millennial reign. 

5. At the same time, the description of the locality as ‘a 
high mountain apart ’—‘ the holy mountain ’— readily suggests 
the elevation, dignity, aloofness from the common ways of 


* Matt. 16 : 28-17: 1, etc.; Mark 9: 1-8; Luke 9: 27-36. 

ireActis ΒΟ» dhuke2x\-/27. 

f(Deut..34 3 5,165 Jude 95: Heb. 11-255 32: Tim, 4.9 τς 2 Dhess4 atop ΤᾺ 
§ 2 Thess, 2: 1. 


Lecture VI—Chapter τ: 16-18. 405 


men, yea, the supra-mundane, celestial origin and character 
of the New Jerusalem, the blessed home of Christ’s royal 
priesthood, and in the light of which shall walk the nations 
of the saved.* 

6. But the central object of interest, and that which more 
than all the rest made the Transfiguration a suitable type of 
the kingdom, was the revelation in His robes of majesty of 
the King Himself. There for a brief space the meek and 
lowly One suddenly cast aside the weeds of His humiliation, 
and manifested forth His glory—‘the glory,’ says another of 
the eye-witnesses, ‘as of the only Begotten of the Father.’ 
It was this very glory, above the brightness of the meridian 
sun, that smote into the dust the pride and fury of Saul of 
Tarsus, and a second time dismayed even the beloved disci- 
ple, now an aged Apostle, in the isle that is called Patmos, 
and whose effulgence shall constitute the heaven of the re- 
deemed through eternal ages. Oh! how changed must we too 
become, to fit us to gaze evermore, not only unharmed and 
without apprehension, but with joy unspeakable, on the Lord 
“as He is?! 7 


It is not, however, so much on what was seen as on what 
was heard on the occasion referred to, that the text insists. 

‘For He received from God thet Father honor and glory’— 
honor, say some, in the voice which spoke to Him; g/ory, in 
the light which shone from Him.§ But the Evangelists re- 
present the latter as merely the bursting forth of our Lord’s 
own hidden glory, rather than as something received from 
without. It is better to take both words as used just as Paul 
uses them together, when he speaks of our ‘seeking for glory 
and honor,’ (Rom, 2 : 7; Heb. 2: 9,) and to regard both as ex- 
plained by the next clause: ‘ when there came such a voice to 
Flim ’—or more literally, a votce being borne to Him such as 
this— from the excellent, or sublime, ‘ glory’ ||—a phrase which 


a Matty U7 τ τ τ ἴεν: 91.2.24: 

Τ᾿ John:2::°11 5 1 511}; Acts'262.13 5° ἘΈΨΕῚ 5 0; 1} 2Ι 25, 9 Ohmaus2 

1 Sin. omits τοῦ before ϑεοῦ. § So Horneius, Gerhard, Clarke, Alford. 

|| φωνῆς ἐνεχϑείσης αὐτῷ τοιᾶσδε ὑπὸ τῆς μεγαλοπρεποῦς (only here in the New 
Testament, Comp. LXX, Deut. 33 : 26) δόξης. 


406 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


many ἢ understand as designating, not the glory in which God 
dwells, but God Himself: ‘ 72s zs my beloved Son, in whom I 
am well pleased, 

And here let us reverently pause, ‘for the place whereon we 
stand is holy ground,’ ἡ and ponder this Divine attestation to 
the person, character, and work, of our Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ. 

1. It is, in the first place, God the Father’s attestation to 
the dignity of our Lord’s person: ‘ Thzs ts my Beloved Son, 
or This 1s my Son, the Beloved One—such being the emphatic 
arrangement of the original phrase. t 

In the Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures the word 
rendered deloved is frequently employed in connection with 
the word soz, as equivalent to oz/y. Thus, to take one in- 
stance, where it is said to Abraham, ‘Take now thy son, thine 
only son Isaac,’ the Septuagint has it precisely as in our text, 
‘Take thy son, the beloved.’§ And hence, on the other hand, 
our text has sometimes been explained as equivalent to, ‘This 
is my Son, the only,’ or ‘the only Begotten.’ 

But even as the verse lies before us, no candid mind will 
deny that it marks out our Lord and Saviour as the Son of 
God in a sense altogether characteristic and exclusive; as 
when He is called ‘the Son of God’s love, or ‘God’s own 
Son.’ Indeed, the simple title, ‘the Son of God,’ is again and 
again applied to Him with a like jealous appropriation, as when 
the writer to the Hebrews, arguing this very point from the 
Old Testament, says: ‘ Unto which of the angels said He at 
any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee 2 
And again, I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to 
me a Son.’ You.recollect also the rage of the Jews when 
Jesus spoke of God as His Father. They perceived clearly 
enough that He did so in a way that implied His own coes- 
sential equality, as being Himself in the highest sense a par- 
taker of the Divine nature.|| 


* Gerhard, Grotius, Bengel, De Wette, Huther, Besser, Alford, Wiesinger. 


if does 3} τς: 
t Odréc ἐστιν ὁ υἱός μου ὁ ἀγαπητός. Alford reads ὁ υἱός μου ὁ ἀγαπητός οὗτός 
ἐστιν. § Gen. 22 : 2. 


| Col. 1:13, (τοῦ Yiod τῆς ἀγάπης αὑτοῦ :) Rom. 8: 32; Heb. 1:5; John 
ἘΠῚ, 18 z 


Lecture VIl—Chapter 1 : 16-18. 407 


But this great truth, you are well aware, does by no means 
rest on any two or three isolated passages. As it lies at the 
foundation of the scheme of human redemption, so it pervades 
and quickens as a living spirit the whole mass of revelation. 
When, however, it pleased ‘God, who at sundry times and in 
divers manners had spoken in time past unto the fathers by 
the prophets, in these last days to speak unto us by His 
Son, * it was fitting that He, to whose Divine glory those 
prophets had by God’s command borne witness, should at His 
introduction to the world be thus similarly accredited by the 
direct and crowning testimony of God Himself. 

2. In the second place, the ‘ voice from the excellent glory’ 
proclaimed Jesus Christ as the object of the Father’s supreme, 
ineffable love. ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, in whom I’— 
even I ; I, whoever else despises and rejects Him -—‘am well 
pleased, and, as the original may be understood to intimate, 
was so from eternity.t 

(1.) As the eternal Son, He is necessarily possessed of all 
infinite excellences. ‘He is the brightness of the Father's 
glory, and the express image of His person’ §—the only ade- 
quate object, therefore, of the Father’s infinite love. 

(2.) As the Son of man also—‘the Man Christ Jesus ’||— 
He was humanity’s fairest fruit, the perfection of all that in 
the beginning of the creation drew the complacent eye of 
God. 

(3.) But we may believe that the heavenly voice had refer- 
ence mainly, not to either of the two natures separately, that 
were united in the person of our Lord, but to His entire per- 
son and work as the ‘ Mediator between God and men.’ As 
such, He was the faithful Executor of the Father’s will—‘ do- 
ing always those things that pleased’ Him. The Divine law 
had been insulted, and He came to magnify it, and make it 
honorable, by a life of spotless obedience, and by the effectual 
atonement of His death. A world which God had made for 
the special manifestation of His glory had been turned away 


ἜΣ ΕΟ pig ΤΕ. + The emphatic ἐγώ. 
+ Such, Alford suggests, may be the force of the aorist εὐδόκησα. 
δ᾿ ΒΡ τ τ τὸ Τῶι. 2’ 5- 


408 -. Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


from His knowledge and service, carried over to the side of 
His enemies, and was now filled with all ungodliness and un- 
righteousness of men, worshipping and serving the creature 
more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. And for this 
purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might de- 
stroy these works of the devil, by declaring God anew to 
men—by Himself enduring the curse, and so repealing it— 
by receiving and dispensing the fulness of the Spirit—giv- 
ing to as many as received Him power to become the sons of 
God—and finally by abolishing death, casting out the usurper, 
and accomplishing the eternal purpose of God in the crea- 
tion of the new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth 
righteousness. + 

Such was the work given Him to do, and which, with all the 
sufferings and sacrifices that it involved, He joyfully under- 
took. ‘Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God!’—the shout with 
which He alighted on the scene of His conflicts and sorrows 
—was not the outcry of a reluctant victim of superior power, 
but the deliberate, resolute utterance of filial loyalty. And 
here again, as before at the very outset of His career, it is an- 
swered by the proclamation of the Father's confidence, and 
love, and joy. ‘Therefore,’ said He, ‘doth my Father love me, 
because I lay down my life that I might take it again” And 
‘as the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the 
Son to have life in Himself, and hath given Him authority to 
execute judgment also, because He is the Son of man.’ In 
other words, as it was because of our Lord’s voluntary humi- 
liation, even to the suffering of death, that God also hath high- 
ly exalted Him, and crowned Him with glory and honor, so at 
His first appearance in our nature, bearing its sin and curse, 
He is, if we may so speak, exultingly hailed, and commended 
to the faith and adoration of the world. Nay, this voice di- 
rect from the throne—what was it but the New Testament ap- 
plication of the ancient oracle by Isaiah : ‘Behold my Servant, 


* The reader would do well to trace out the Scriptural proof of the above 
statement in such texts as these: Is. 42:21; John 1: 12, 18; 3:34; 8:29; 
16 1; Romsor):)18,.25)5 (81: 2} 12.5.1 Dims)2 2 ΖΦ Dimi nero eee τὸς 
12; 1 70 3 Ole Va σοῖς 2,.95.; 21.5.1, 5; 22:3. 


Lecture VI—Chapter 1 : 16-18. 409 


whom I uphold; mine Elect, in whom my soul delighteth ; I 
have put my Spirit upon Him: He shall bring forth judgmént 
to the Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause His 
voice to be heard in the street. A. bruised reed shall He not 
break, and the smoking flax shall He not quench : He shall 
bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not fail nor be 
discouraged, till He have set judgment in the earth: and the 
isles shall wait for His law. That is, in the personal charac- 
ter of the Messiah, and in His saving work and victorious 
might as the world’s Redeemer, God finds reason sufficient 
for His loving the Son, and being in Him well pleased. * 

3. But I conceive there is yet something more in these 
words. They‘seem intended to express not merely the digni- 
ty of the Son, and the Father's love and joy in Him, but the 
Divine placability and benignity, for His sake, to the world of 
transgressors. They are an assurance to all that hear, that, 
though God was angry with us, yet, now that He looks on the 
face of His Anointed, His anger is turned away, and He waits 
to be gracious unto us, and to comfort us. They are an authori- 
tative confirmation of the song of angels over the manger of 
Bethlehem : ‘Glory to God im the highest, and on earth peace, 
good will toward men.’ They are the very Gospel that Apos- 
tles were sent forth to preach, ‘to wit, that God was in Christ, 
reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their tres- 
passes unto them.’ They teach us that the great love which 
the Father hath to the Son overflows on all that belong to 
that Son. God beholds them in Him, and is well pleased’ 
with them also for His righteousness’ sake. They ‘are ac-- 
cepted in the Beloved.’ + 


On many grounds, therefore, there was good reason why 
the Apostle should add to his record of so momentous an 
announcement the solemn authentication of the 18th verse: 
‘And this voice we’—I myself and my two companions— 
‘heard borne from heaven, being with Him on the holy mount. t 


* Ps. 40 τ. G5 Matt. (sisir7 johw 16's 175 °5 26,0273. Phil: 2 23,°9 ;* Heb. 
2275 is. 42) 3 1-4: 

telukers! s914) 5.21 Cor5.* 10s 15: ΤΣ et 3 Eph.r: 6: 

{ Καὶ ταύτην τὴν φωνὴν ἡμεῖς (emphatic) ἠκούσαμεν ἐξ obpavod.(Sin: ἐκ τοῦ οὐρα-- 


410 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


It reminds one of the similar affidavit, if we may so say, of 
the Apostle John to the fact of the blood and water issuing 
from the pierced side of the dead Saviour: ‘ And he that saw 
it bare record, and his record is true, and he knoweth that he 
saith true, that ye might believe.’ * ; 

It is of no consequence that we should be able to determine 
on what particular mountain this great transaction took place ; 
whether, according to the old tradition, on Mount Tabor, or, 
according to some modern scholars and travellers, on Mount 
Hermon. Whichever it was, it was ever after ‘the holy 
mountain, for those at least who knew what had transpired on 
its summit. Ὁ 


Let me now, in conclusion, note a few thoughts suggested 
by the whole passage. 

1. And, in the first place, we may well adore the conde- 
scension of God, that, over and above all the other manifold 
and infallible evidences of the truth of Christianity, He 
should Himself, as it were, rise up from His throne, and 
stoop down to earth, and add the seal of His own audible 
testimony. Learn, then, 


2. Secondly, how great is the security of the Christian’s 
faith. Well might the first preachers feel that they ‘ought to 
speak boldly.’ And well is it with their successors in that 
work, when, in making known Christ to men, they too can 
speak with the assurance of a personal knowledge of Christ, 
saying: ‘God, who commanded the light to shine out of dark- 
ness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the know- 


vod) ἐνεχϑεῖσαν, σὺν αὐτῷ ὄντες ἐν τῷ ὄρει τῷ ἁγίῳ (Alford, τῷ ἁγίῳ ὄρει )—The 
grammatical connection of this verse with the one preceding is broken by the in- 
tervention of φωνῆς... εὐδόκησα (Winer, De Wette, Huther, etc.) This is bet- 
ter than to supply a finite verb, as ἦν, to λαβών (Grotius, Bos, etc.)—V. 18 is the 
corroboration (γάρ) of v. 16. 

* John 19 : 35. 

+ The epithet, therefore, is no proof at all that the Temple mount is meant, as 
Grotius supposed, who, denying Peter’s authorship of our Epistle, was led to 
identify the occurrence alluded to in the text with that recorded in John 12 : 28. 
Calvin : ‘Quocumque enim accedit Dominus ut est fons omnis sanctitatis, prae- 
sentize suze odore omnia sanctificat :? ‘ Wherever the Lord comes, being the foun- 
tain of all holiness, He makes holy all places by the odor of His presence.’ 


Lecture VI—Chapter τ: 16-18. 4τι 


ledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.’ Let 
us all commit ourselves confidently in life and death to this 
mighty Saviour, in whom dwelleth the fulness of the God- 
head, and toward whom is poured forth the fulness of the 
Divine love. * ' 


3. Equally evident, in the third place, is the folly, guilt, and 
misery of those who neglect a salvation as sure as it is great. 
Having truth and falsehood set before them, they choose the 
falsehood. For what else are all men’s thoughts about God 
and Divine things, apart from this revelation of His nature 
and counsels and will, but empty notions, or more or less 
‘cunningly devised fables’? To those who ‘receive not the 
love of the truth, that they may be saved, God sends strong 
delusion, that they may believe a lie” And then, do the im- 
penitent ever seriously reflect that, in thus treating Jesus 
Christ, they are striking at the very heart of God? By re- 
jecting, or counting as a light and common thing, this record 
which God hath given concerning His Son, they not merely 
impeach His veracity—horrible thought! making God a liar! 
—but they openly, daringly insult His love. And how shall 
they escape ? t 


4. Again, we are here furnished with the very best test of 
our adoption into God’s family. Do we in any measure what- 
ever share, or sympathize in, this love of the Father to the 
Son? 


5. And, finally, let us beware of judging of men’s relations 
to God from their outward circumstances in this life, or from 
the estimation in which they are held by their fellow-men. 
Here was a very poor, a homeless man, a man of sorrows and 
acquainted with grief, one whom, as had been foretold of Him, 
man despised and the nation abhorred—one for whom this 
world had nothing better than cruel mockings and scourgings 
and a cross{—and yet you see who He was, and how God 


* 2 Cor..4.: 6; Eph: 6:20); Col! 2': 9. 
ἣν Hebs 2.2. 3.; 2h besse2. =| 50; 11> ¥ John 5 - 10. 
ἢ UGH SIR WE 778 ISIC) ΣΝ 1.20, 


412 Lectures on the Second Lpistle of Peter. 


thought of Him, and felt toward Him. The same mistake in 
kind is often made in regard to God’s children still, and some- 
times God’s own children themselves are in danger of falling 
into it. My hearers, were search made to-night by the angels 
throughout this great nation for the man dearest to God and 
to Christ, where, think you, would he most likely be found ? 
Very possibly not at the head of armies, or in the mansions 
of the rich and the mighty and the noble, or in the halls of 
learning, or in the chair of state, or on the bench of justice, 
or in the resounding pulpit ; but quite as probably, I think 
even more probably, remote from the crowd and the strug- 
gles of ambition, in solitude, perhaps in tears, in some hum- 
ble cottage of the poor, or asylum of charity, or it may be 
—O Divine rebuke to the base spirit of the baser sort 
throughout this land !—in that dark, sordid slave-hut! Chil- 
dren of God! brethren of Christ! ‘take heed that ye despise 
not one of these little ones.’* 


* Matt. 18 : 10. 


LECTURE bl, 


QPP Roak.s ATO; 


‘WE have also a more sure word of prophecy ; whereunto ye do well that ye 
take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark’ place, until the day dawn, and 
the day-star arise in your hearts.’ : 


‘WE believe,’ said Paul to the Corinthians, ‘ and therefore 
speak. * And so here Peter had said that the reason, why he 
was bent on doing what in him lay to perpetuate among his 
brethren the continual remembrance of the Gospel they had 
been taught, was his own assurance of the truth of ‘ the power 
and coming ’—the present exaltation and future coming in His 
kingdom—‘ of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ As this one doctrine 
carries with it all the rest, so on it depend immediately the 
preciousness of the Christian hope and the fulfilment of every 
Divine promise, (v. 11.) And that the doctrine itself is no 
‘cunningly devised fable, but a most blessed, Divine verity, is 
established by two considerations out of many others that 
might have been adduced—by what the writer saw and heard 
on the holy mount, and by the sure word of prophecy. The 
verse before us, in holding up to view the second of these gua- 
rantees, invites us to consider first the use and value of pro- 
phecy, and then the duty of believers in regard to it. 

It is evident from the whole context, and especially from 
what follows, (vs. 20, 21, and ch. 2: 1,) that the prophetic 
word referred to is that of the Old Testament Scriptures. 
This, on account of the unity of its origin and its one all-per- 
vading theme—Christ’s sufferings and glories (1 Peter 1 : 11)— 


ἘΠ 2 Cor.\4 : 13. 


414 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


is spoken of as one word, one scheme or .body of prophecy. 
But with what is this word compared, when it is characterized 
as ‘a more sure word’ ? 

It has, indeed, been sometimes supposed that no compari- 
son is intended, but that the expression is equivalent to‘a 
sure word,’* or ‘a very sure word.’ But this seems merely to 
evade a difficulty. 

On the other hand, however, it will not do to say that the 

-comparison has reference to the fables of v. 16, as if the mean- 
ing were that the word of prophecy is surer than they.t 

A much more common explanation is, that the prophetic 
word is represented as a surer evidence of ‘the power and 
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ’ than is afforded by the 
apostolic testimony in regard to the Transfiguration. And 
this is no doubt the only sense that can fairly be got out of 
the clause as it lies before us. But it is very far from being 
satisfactory. Or rather I deem it incredible that the Apostle 
would have admitted for a moment, that anything whatever 
can be surer and more trustworthy than what he himself de- 
clared touching the visible glory and the immediate voice of 
God, to which he had been an eye and ear witness. 

Yes, say some, § the old prophecies were surer to the Jews, 
and more venerated by them on account of their age. But 
Peter is not here speaking as a Jew, nor to Jews, nor of them. 
Then it is suggested that ‘the appearance and voice on the 
mount were ¢vauszent, and only three persons witnessed the 
interesting scene.’ || But the well-authenticated record of it 
remained, nor was there between the writer and his readers 
the least dispute or doubt as to its perfect acctiracy ; not to 
mention that against a very large portion of the Hebrew 
Scriptures, prophetic and historical, the same or a similar 
objection might be urged, and that even in a stronger form. 
Was not the great mass of ancient prophecy, in particular, 
conveyed by like transient vision or brief utterance to the 
individual seer, and delivered to the Church on his single tes- 


* Syriac, Luther, Vatablus, etc. { Arabic, Dutch, Pagninus, Bezar, etc. 
{ Though Barnes allows this as a possible interpretation. 
§ Calvin, Whitby, etc. || Scott, Burkitt, etc. 


Lecture VIT—Chapter τ: το. AIS 


timony? How, then, should it be surer than what was now 
attested by three Apostles ? 

A more plausible answer to this question is, that the Trans- 
figuration was in itself only a historical occurrence, or at the 
most but a presumption or a type, and not an express pro- 
phecy, of our Lord’s future advent.* But this statement, it 
seems to me, does not bring out the full significance of the 
former event in its relation to the latter, nor does it do justice 
to the spirit of the preceding context. There the writer 
plainly appeals to the scene on the mount as in itself a valid 
demonstration of the truth of what the Apostles taught re- 
specting our Lord’s ‘power and coming.’ Nor is it difficult 
to understand why he should so have regarded it. Remember 
that the prophecies of the Old Testament are all over bright 
with the glory of Messiah’s throne—that those prophecies 
Jesus of Nazareth appropriated to Himself, and claimed that 
glory for His own—that meanwhile the world, seeing Him 
only in the form of a servant, knew not the Lord—that the 
disciples themselves were not unfrequently disconcerted and . 
perplexed by the contrast between His pretensions and His 
appearance—that almost immediately after that, in condescen- 
sion to their weakness, the promise had been given of a speedy 
revelation of the Son of Man in His kingdom, the Shechinah- 
cloud descended, and the face and raiment of their lowly 
Master shone with an unearthly splendor, and the audible 
voice of God proclaimed His peerless dignity—put, I say, these 
various facts together, and you will be at no loss to apprehend 
the real design and import of the Transfiguration, It was an 
ocular confirmation of the ancient promises still unfulfilled— 
a rehearsal, if one might venture so to speak, in private and 
on a small scale, of what all eyes shall yet behold. Who of 
those that stood in the blaze of that Majesty and heard that 
Voice, or who of those that had been brought to believe their 
word, could ever after harbor a doubt that the crown of Mes- 
siah the Prince would’yet be seen on the head of the crucified 
and ascended Saviour? aie 

Now, let it be remarked that the difficulty in the interpre- 


* Sherlock, Guyse, Gill, Bloomfield, Huther. 


416 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


tation of this clause* arises in great measure from the trans- 
lation. It is, in fact, susceptible of two renderings ; either, 
‘And we have a surer, the prophetic, word, + or, ‘And we 
have more sure the prophetic word.’t Of these versions the 
first still yields only such senses as we have already found it 
necessary to set aside, whereas the idea expressed by the 
other, which all allow to be equally natural and grammatical, 
is just that to which the whole scope of the passage points. 
The Transfiguration was itself an indubitable declaration of 
the personal and official glory of Jesus Christ—a sufficient 
warrant, therefore, for all that the Apostles taught on that 
subject. And not only so, but faith now holds with a firmer 
grasp the staff of promise, on which she has leaned from the 
beginning. ‘ We have’—we Christians now have—‘ the pro- 
phetic word more sure’ than when all outward appearances 
seemed to discourage the hope of its fulfilment—more sure 
even in its loftiest disclosures respecting things to come— 
not, indeed, more sure in itself, but as abiding in our concep- 
tion and in our hearts; very much as in the tenth verse we 
are exhorted to ‘make our calling and election sure,’ or as 
our Lord is said to have been ‘a minister of the circumcision 
for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the 
fathers.’ ὃ 


Observe, then, the Apostle’s estimate of the prophetic word 
thus certified. He compares it to ‘a /zght, or lamp, ‘ shining 
in a dark place. || 

This ‘dark place’ is not the dimness of Old Testament 
times, as compared with the brightness of the Gospel age, ** 
and still less is it a lower stage, as some would say, of the 
Christian life, when faith is yet resting on the outward word 


* καὶ ἔχομεν βεβαιότερον τὸν προφητικὸν λόγον. 

+ Allioli, Bloomfield, Wordsworth, etc. 

t βεβαιότερον has been taken thus as a predicate by very many from Gicume- 
nius to Fronmiiller. 

§ Rom. 15 : ὃ (βεβαιῶσαι.) : 

|| λύχνῳ (see Revision of Revelation 1 : 12, note c) daivovts ἐν αὐχμηρῷ (in the 
New Testament found only here ; and so διαυγάσῃ and φωσφόρος) τόπῳ. 

** Vorstius, Gerhard, Bengel, (who clearly errs in making φαΐνοντι a participle 
of the imperfect, = chat shone, ) Burkitt. 


Lecture VII—Chapter 1 : το. 417 


and its evidences, instead of the inward illumination of the 
Spirit.* It is surely much more natural to understand by it 
the actual state of the world at large at that time, and indeed 
ever since, apart from the revealed truth and renewing grace 
of God—a state at once cheerless, and perilous, and helpless. 
‘Darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the peo- 
ples’ }—the-darkness of sin, ignorance, despair, death. There 
were not wanting then, any more than now, talent and genius, 
education, arts and sciences, philosophy and poetry—all the 
elements of a high secular civilization. But this, though men 
call it glory, is not ‘the light of life’ It has no power what- 
ever to expiate guilt, to cleanse the heart from an evil con- 
science, to renew man after the image in which he was creat- 
ed, and raise him to a blessed, secure, and everlasting fellow- 
ship with the Infinite Good. Not one of all the sparks of our 
own kindling casts even the faintest gleam into the valley of 
the shadow of death, or on the destinies of our race, and the 
vast eternity that awaits us all. On every side, in whatever 
concerns his most serious relations and interests, the natural 
man at his best estate finds himself shut in by a darkness 
that may be felt ;£ and on no side is that darkness more pal- 
pable and impenetrable than when he attempts for himself or 
others to look out into the future. Here too, no doubt, he 
can speculate, and dream, and boast, as when heathen Rome 
proudly claimed eternal supremacy among the nations, or the 
Brahmin anticipates with a stolid satisfaction the absorption 
of himself and of the universe into the Divine essence. 

But all such ‘light -is as darkness.’ Nothing will here 
avail but the light from heaven—‘the prophetic word, which 
God has put into the hand of His Church as ‘a lamp unto 
her feet, and a light unto her path,’ as she advances through 
the gloom in weakness and fear toward her rest. Ever since 
the advent of Christ in the flesh, and the shining forth of His 
glory on the mount, that lamp burns, as our text intimates, 
with a brighter flame. And what now shall the Church do 


* Something like this is Huther’s view, and is favored also by Alford. 

T pon. 

ἢ John 8:12; Heb. 10:22; Col. 3:10; 1 John 1:3; Is. 50:11; Ex. 
ΤῸ: 2; 


418 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


with it? . Hold it out before her for her own guidance and 
cheer? Or hide it away under a bushel, as something likely 
rather to mislead ?* The latter, you are aware, is the course 
recommended, if not expressly in words, yet certainly by the 
example of the great majority of Christian professors in our 
day. And on what pretexts do they think to justify this 
strange and unthankful abuse of so precious a gift of God? 

Sometimes modesty is pleaded, and an unwillingness to 
pry into ‘the secret things that belong unto the Lord our 
God. But let it be observed that ‘the prophetic word’ is 
not one of these ‘secret things’ at all. On the contrary, it is 
emphatically one of ‘those things which are revealed, and 
which, as being revealed, ‘ belong unto us and to our children 
for ever. That Christ shall come again, raise the dead, and 
judge the world, is not one of God’s reserved secrets. But 
whence do we learn aught on these fundamental points, ex- 
cept from prophecy? In fact, the very words that are thus 
cited to discourage prophetic study occur in close connection 
with one of the longest and. most remarkable prophecies of 
the Old Testament. Nor can it be forgotten that the longest 
and most difficult prophecy of the New Testament is distin- 
guished from all the other books of the Bible by the name of 
Revelation. It is any thing but modesty, to stop our ears 
when God speaks, no matter in what tone or on what subject ; 
and it need be, and ought to be, with no idle or irreverent 
curiosity, that we then earnestly listen. 

Equally inconsiderate is the not unfrequent remark, that 
we had better leave mere matters of speculation alone, and 
stick to what is practical ; as if-any thing could be more prac: 
tical than ‘a lamp that shineth in a dark place, or the enno- 
bling, purifying hope whereby we are saved,t and which de- 
rives from prophecy its very existence and salutary power. 
The faculty of hope is one of the most vigorous and influen- 
tial powers of our nature, and is sure to make for itself, if it 
does not find already prepared, ways for its own exercise. 
Now, the wisdom and love of Him who made man are seen in 


* Job 10: 22; Ps. 119: 105; Phil. 2:16; Matt. 5 #15. 
t Deut. 28 : 29. t 1 John 3:3; Rom. 8: 24. 


Lecture VII—Chapter 1 : το. 419 


His having provided all through His word, from the first pro- 
mise in lost Paradise down to the closing vision of Paradise 
regained, the amplest scope and nutriment for this irrepressi- 
ble instinct of the soul ; and if devoutly to feed on that which 
God’s hand has furnished be in any objectionable sense specu- 
lation, what is it—and this is the only and ever ready alterna- 
tive—to turn prophets ourselves, and out of our own poor, 
prejudiced fancies forecast a future for ourselves, our country, 
the Church, and the world ? 

Then it is often hastily alleged that prophecy comes of use 
only after the fulfilment, when a clear demonstration is thus 
given of the Divine prescience and universal control. This is 
indeed one great use of prophecy ; but that it is neither the 
sole nor even the principal use is shown abundantly in the 
history of the faithful, ever since men learned to trust God 
concerning things to come. Was there, for example, no im- 
mediate advantage in prophecy—unfulfilled prophecy—when 
‘Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved 
with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house’? or, 
when under a like impulse, Joseph and Mary fled down into 
Egypt, and so rescued from the sword of Herod the infant 
Redeemer of the world? Nay, the patient waiting of all the 
Old Testament saints for redemption in Israel—on what did 
it depend but the word of promise, that is, unfulfilled prophecy ? 
And so now, at this present time also, as has already been 
suggested, all warrantable confidence in the anticipation of 
the future—all the consolation of Christian hope—rests on no 
other basis. To lay prophecy aside, therefore, until it is justi- 
fied by time and the event, is not only to affront the truth and 
faithfulness of God, but to cut ourselves off from one main 
source of strength and comfort. Instead of ‘ taking heed to 
the prophetic word, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, till 
the day dawn,’ it is to leave that lamp lying neglected in dust 
and rubbish, till by and by we can bring it out, and hold it 
up in the face of the sun. 

But perhaps the most common and plausible objection 15 
drawn from the supposed difficulty and obscurity of the sub- 
ject in some of its aspects, and from the conflicting mistakes 
and extravagancies of not a few of those who have at different 


420 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


times distinguished themselves in this particular line of bibli- 
cal investigation. To this it is an obvious and sufficient 
answer, that the objection, if sound, would go to justify us in 
shutting up our Bibles altogether, since there is scarcely one 
sacred page that has not been similarly misunderstood and 
perverted. The truth is, however, that among such as deserve 
to be called students of prophecy there is really a greater and 
a more general harmony of view on essential points, than is 
found to exist in other departments of theological science, 
nor are their divergences by any means so mischievous in 
their character and tendency. But be the difficulty of the 
study and the risk of failure what they may, nothing of that 
sort, it is evident, can at all excuse us from the diligent and 
prayerful meditation of what it has pleased God to deliver to 
us by His ‘servants the prophets.’ He sends no message 
to His children to mock their humble and pious endeavors 
to understand it. ‘All Scripture ’—and, if you have never 
made the computation, you would be surprised to learn how 
large a proportion of Scripture is occupied with unfulfilled 
prophecy—‘all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and 
is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for in- 
struction in righteousness, that the man of God may be per- 
fect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.’ Every con- 
sideration, therefore, that binds us to study the Bible or any 
portion of it, enforces the duty of studying the prophetic 
word. And it is well to remember that, as if to guard us 
against the snare of a sluggish and incurious spirit in this 
matter, a special blessing is again and again attached to the 
reading and hearing and keeping of that very prophecy which 
more than all others has perplexed interpreters.* Prophecy, 
in a word, is not darkness, but light ; though rightly to dis- 
cern and use it, or any other scripture, the eye must be 
anointed by that same Spirit by whom prophets and apostles 
spake. 

Such, then, are the pleas on which very many even good 
men ordinarily defend their lack of interest in one most ex- 
tensive province of Divine revelation, and I am unable to see 


* Jer; 7.: 25; 2) 11:5. 10; 17; Rev. 123; 22:7. 0) 10. nee 


Lecture VII—Chapter 1 : το. 421 


in them any validity whatever. Nor do they seem to have so 
much as occurred to either the teachers or the members of 
the apostolic churches. Evidently Peter had no thought that 
his brethren, in taking heed to the prophetic word, were 
showing themselves presumptuous, or unpractical, or prema- 
turely interested in an unseasonable subject, or misspending 
their time on hopeless, barren riddles. On the contrary, he 
commends their practice, and encourages them to persevere 
init. ‘Ye do well)* says he, in that you keep this lamp of 
the Spirit ever trimmed and bright in your habitations... This 
is just what becomes the pilgrims of faith, and the prisoners 
of hope. Beware lest at any time it grow dim through your 
neglect. At no time, throughout all the night-watches, will 
you be able safely to dispense with it. It will at least help 
to keep you awake and watchful, while ever reminding you 
that the Sun is yet below the horizon, and that you are wait- 
ing for His appearance. Maintain, therefore, your present at- 
titude of patient, earnest expectation ‘ διέ day | dawn, and 
the day-star arise in your hearts. ἢ 

The explanation of this depends chiefly on what we under- 
stand by the ‘ dark place’ with which itis contrasted.§ Taking 
that expression, as we did, to denote ‘ this present evil world’ 
—the place of the Church’s sojourning—we can have no doubt 
that the hour of dawn is at the return of our Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ. Then, indeed, though not till then, will ‘the 
day break, and the shadows flee away.’ After the long and 
dismal night, ‘He shall be as the light of the morning, when 
the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds’—that con- 
summation of glory to which, not only ‘the last words of 
David the son of Jesse,’ but, as is plainly implied in the text, 
the uniform tenor of prophecy from the beginning bore its 
glowing witness. When it comes, ‘ prophecies shall fail.’ The 
lamp, no longer needed, will go out in the brightness of real- 
ization. But until it does come, we are to hold fast ‘ the pro- 


* καλῶς ποιεῖτε. 

+ ἡμέρα---αὐἰῖμοῦξ the article ; which is, however, found in Sin. 

¢ Bengel connects this clause with the skiming; Dietlein, with both the shnxzng 
and the taking heed. 

§ See p. 192. 


422 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


phetic word, as our present ‘strong consolation’ and the char- 
ter of our hope.* 

The addition of the words ‘zz your hearts’} suggests that 
the writer was thinking rather of effects in the spiritual sphere 
than of the outward splendors of that day of revelation. Even 
now believers, we have seen, may be said, like the children of 
Israel in the land of Goshen, to ‘have light in their dwellings.’ 
But more than that, they are themselves ‘light in the Lord,’ 
and so ‘the light of the world” They ‘are not in darkness,’ 
except as surrounded by it. They ‘are all the children of light, 
and the children of the day: they are not of the night, nor of 
darkness.’ This, however, is true of them only as compared 
with unbelievers, or with what they themselves once were, 
not as compared with what they ‘ shall be,’ when they shall be 
like Christ, seeing Him as He is. Then at last shall every 
cloud disappear from the firmament of the soul. ‘ Day shall 
dawn, and the day-star’—Phosphorus, the Light-Bringer— 
‘shall arise in your hearts, and all material glory thenceforth 
be but the reflection of the spiritual. Now Christ in you is 
the hope of glory; then Christ in you shall be glory itself. 
‘The Lord God shall lighten them. ‘I am,’ says Jesus, ‘the 
bright and morning star ;’ and He says also, ‘ He that over- 
cometh. . . I will give him the morning-star.’ Every Chris- 
tian is yet to be as it were a miniature Christ—one of innu- 
merable lesser fires around the Sun of righteousness, burning 
and shining in His light.¢ 


1. Of the several important lessons taught us in this verse, 
none is more obvious than that of the right and duty of all 
Christian people to have and, not only read but, study the 
written word of God. They are to ‘ zake heed’—give their mind 
—to it.§ 


* Gal, 2 :'4.5° Song 2.:.1.7; 4 3 63 2 Sam. 23 298145) 1. Cor, 3s: Ss) ΤΠ 
6: 18. 

+ Erroneously connected with ‘ take heed’ by Wolle, (as cited by Wolf.) Scholz 
also includes in a parenthesis all that intervenes. 

{ Ex. 10:23; Eph.5:8; Matt. 5:14; 1 Thess. 5: 4,5; 1 John 3:23 Col. 
1:27; Rev. 22: 5, (according to the now received reading,) 16; 2: 28; John 
5: 35 


ὃ προσέχοντες, SC. τὸν νοῦν. 


- 


Lecture VII—Chapter 1: το. 423 

2. From this attentive consideration the Scriptures of the 
Old Testament, and in particular their prophetical parts, are 
by no means to be excluded. These are not yet, and they 
never will be, obsolete in the Church of this dispensation. So 
far from having been superseded by the New Testament, the 
New Testament is but the incipient fulfilment of them. Moses 
and Elias appear in glory with Christ. 

3. Let us learn to think soberly with regard to the charac- 
ter, design, and issues of the present economy of grace. The 
night, indeed, is far spent, ‘the day is at hand. But the day 
has not yet appeared. It is still night. Be not high-minded, 
but fear.* 

4. And meanwhile our present business is to strive, like the 
wise servant, to have every thing in readiness against the com- 
ing of the Lord, and ‘so much the more as we see the day 
approaching.’ Other eyes besides ours are fixed on the same 
spot of the darkened heavens, and amid the weariness and 
eloom the word is passed from tower to tower, ‘ Watchman, 
what of the night ? Watchman, what of the night ?’ Does any 
one ask, What mean the eager, hopeful voices? The answer 


is, They are longing for the dawn—they are looking for 
Christ. f 


FROM. Ὁ ΠΕΤΖ ΤΥ, 420s ΤΉ τοῖς 25); Is; 2-2-1132 ΕἸΒΒΣ Ὁ 3:28. 


IZECTURE oViAdy. 


AID OSIRIS BR 20, he 


‘KNOWING this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private inter- 
pretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the willof man: but holy 
men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.’ 


A. GLANCE at the context shows that the 2oth verse is inti- 
mately related to the 19th. There the writer had commended 
his brethren for taking heed, and had encouraged them to 
persevere in taking heed, to the prophetic word, as being 
confirmatory of the truth of what Apostles had taught them 
respecting the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
and as having itself been confirmed by what Apostles had al- 
ready seen and heard of His kingly majesty on the mount of 
Transfiguration. Here, whatever doubt may rest on the pre- 
cise meaning of the verse, it certainly seems to specify some 
consideration that mainly justified their attentive and persist- 
ent interest in the study, and at the same time perhaps the 
consideration was one, the settled conviction and steady re- 
membrance of which was essential to their profiting by that 
study: ‘ Knowing this first, first of all, as what is most impor- 
tant to be known and ever borne in mind, ‘¢hat no prophecy of 
Scripture* is of any private interpretation. What this really 
means, however, is far from being obvious. -In fact, the pas- 
sage has long been famous as the cross of commentators.f 
Let us at least do our best to understand it. 


* 2 Tim, 3 : 16—the only other text where γραφή occurs without the article. 
t Wolf: ‘Crucem fixit interpretibus.’ 


© 


Lecture VIII—Chapter 1 + 20, 21. 425 


Evidently the great point is to determine the exact import 
of the phrase, ‘private interpretation. And with regard to 
this, opinions will: be found to arrange themselves in three 
principal divisions, according as the word frzvaze is referred 
to prophecy, the readers of prophecy, or the prophets them- 
selves. 

I. According to one very old and still very common opi- 
nion, what the text asserts is that zo Scripture prophecy inter- 
prets itself, but needs light from the event or other reve- 
lations.* 

To this view there are several serious objections. If no 
prophecy interprets itself, or, in other words, if no prophecy 
is so expressed as to be apart by itself intelligible, then it is 
not easy to see how any number of prophecies, themselves all 
equally indeterminate, could be made by combination to deter- 
mine the meaning of one another. All prophecy, prior to the 
fulfilment, must be only useless and bewildering. The ‘lamp 
shining in a dark place’ could at the best but serve to make 
the darkness visible. It could penetrate the gloom with no 
resistless ray, and could shed no comfortable light on the 
pathway of the Church. This interpretation, therefore, sets 
aside one chief end of prophecy, to wit, the guidance and con- 
solation of the children of God during their earthly pilgrimage, 

‘and is irreconcilable with the nature of faith as ‘the sub- 
stance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,’ ἡ 
and with the experience of the faithful in all ages. Moreover, 
it contradicts the testimony of Scripture itself respecting some 
prophecies, as when Paul says that ‘the Spirit speaketh ex- 
pressly,’ that is, distinctly, unambiguously, in regard to the 
apostasy of the latter times ; and the unquestionable fact is, 
that very many prophecies of Scripture do interpret them- 
selves just as readily and satisfactorily as Micah’s one prophecy | 
of the birth of the Messiah in Bethlehem, which we find was 
perfectly understood by the chief priests and scribes, and that | 
independently of any help either from the event or from other | 
scriptures.t Nor must it be overlooked that, were it even | 


* So the Syriac, (which also construes idiag with γραφῆς,) Horsley, Dietlein, 
Peile, Briickner, Wordsworth, and many others. . 
if Bley ee B 5k, ΤΠ 40: αν; Matt, 2.5 5,65 Wiles) 2-25 


426 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


true that every scriptural prophecy is in itself unintelligible, 
‘this would scarcely be alleged for the sake of illustrating and 
enforcing the duty, presented in the 19th verse, of taking heed 
to it, nor, on the other hand, would that fact itself be at all 
accounted for by telling us, as in the 2Ist verse, that prophecy 
was originally spoken by holy men of God under a Divine in- 
spiration.* 


II. The second general explanation, and one also quite 
commonly adopted, is this: δ prophecy of Scripture is sub- 
ject to the private judgment of each separate reader. 

There is necessary also, says the Romanist, the consent of 
the Catholic Church. But as, on the one hand, we know that 
many prophecies have been rightly interpreted by individuals 
without that consent, as by Noah, Abraham, Daniel, so, on the 
other hand, there is comparatively but a small proportion of 
the prophecies on which any such consent can be found to 
exist. Nor does the 21st verse go to prove that it is required. 

The Protestants, again, who adopt this second view say that 
what is needed to control and fortify private judgment is Di- 
vine illumination, or the general sense of Scripture.t And 
here undoubtedly we have a great principle of safe biblical 
interpretation. But, besides that the announcement of it as 
especially applicable to every prophecy might seem to be some-" 
what-too absolute, it must also be confessed that the connec- 
tion between it and what follows remains still indistinct and 
unsatisfactory. 


III. And the same thing may be said of one form of the 
third view—that which refers the word przvate, not to prophe- 
cy as failing to interpret itself, nor yet to the readers of pro- - 
phecy as unable to interpret it by their own sagacity, but zo 
the prophets themselves as unable to interpret their own prophe- 
cies. That these prophecies were divinely inspired is of it- 
self no reason at all for the prophets,not being able to under- 


* Comp. p. 194. 

+ So many from Bede to Wiesinger, including Luther, Beza, Cocceius, Steiger, 
etc. 

t+ So GEcumenius, Knapp, Schleusner, Tilloch, De Wette. 


Lecture VIII—Chapter 1 : 20, 21. 427 


stand them ; nor, on the other hand, is it likely that the mere 
fact of the prophets not understanding some or any of their 
prophecies would be urged as the principal reason for taking 
heed to them, or as the main thing to be remembered by the 
student. 


There is, however, another way of putting this third refer- 
ence, that is free from the difficulties besetting all the other 
explanations. According to this, the Apostle had no thought 
whatever about the interpretation of prophecy. He was 
thinking solely of its origin, and what he says is that ¢he 
prophets in prophesying did not of themselves tnterpret the fu- 
ture, or the hidden counsels of God. Now, that the verse will 
bear this construction I have no doubt. Indeed, a strict ren- 
dering of it would, I think, be the following: ‘ Anowzug this 
jirst, that no prophecy of Scripture cometh of private’—or from 
one’s own— interpretation. * No such prophecy, in other 
words, is the fruit of the prophet’s own conjectures or cal- 
culations as to what is going to happen. ἡ 

To this solution of the difficulty I am not aware of any 
valid objection, and it has several points in its favor, that 
are not met by any other: 


* ἰδίας (translated in our common version seventy-eight times out of ninety- 
six by ow7, his own, her own, etc., according to the reference) ἐπελύσεως (the emen- 
dation ἐπηλύσεως, adopted by Grotius, is merely conjectural, having no manu- 
script authority) οὐ γίνεται.---᾽ ᾿πίλυσις, found nowhere else in the New Testa- 
ment, is employed by Aquila for pryianp, Gen. 40 : 8, (English version éverpre-. 
tations, ) and by Symmachus for pnp, Hos. 3 : 4, (deraphim—understanding, 


probably, by the word an oracular response, or the means by which it was ob- 
tained. In this case Theodotion has ἐπιλυομένου ; and Aquila, the same form at 
Gen. 41 : 8.) The etymological idea of zloosing, setting free from entanglement, 
and hence figuratively of making clear, settling by exposition, is apparent in the 
New Testament use of ἐπιλύω, Mark 4 : 34, (E. V. expounded ;) Acts 19 : 39; and, 
according to some copies, in the Septuagint Gen. 41 : 12. 

+ Such appears to be the sense of the Vulgate, (proprid interpretatione non fit, ) 
and it has been adopted by many later interpreters, including Cameron, Bengel, 
Huther, Robinson, Alford, Fronmiiller, etc. 

1 The more common construction, indeed, would have a preposition, as ἐκ, 
ἀπό, with the genitive. But this case is also employed thus simply by itself to 
express the relation of dependence or origin. See Rom.g : 16; Buttmann, ὃ 132, 
3; Kiihner, § 273, 1. 


428 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


1. It satisfies the universal term of the proposition. It is 
true of every Scripture prophecy, that it did not originate 
with the prophet. 

2. It preserves the proper force of the word which I ren- 
der cometh, and which always does carry with it the idea of 
origin, production, result, or change of state. In other places, 
accordingly, our translators represent it variously by such ex- 
pressions as 20 be made, to be wrought, to be done, to become, to 
arise, to come, to come to pass, etc.* 

3. The writer having just spoken of the ‘lamp shining ina 
dark place,’ it was very natural that he should at once and 
earnestly assure us, that that lamp was neither fashioned nor 
lighted by the prophet himself. 

4. Here was a distinct and powerful motive for taking heed 
to the prophetic word, and one well fitted to produce a patient 
and reverent and docile spirit of investigation ; especially when, 

5. In the last place, what we thus suppose to be implied in 
the negative statement of the 20th verse is immediately un- 
folded into the more explicit declarations of the 21st :—‘ For 
the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy 
men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. 


This at least must be allowed to be an unequivocal aposto- 
lic testimony as to the source of prophecy—of ‘ every prophe- 
cy of Scripture’—and by Scripture it cannot be questioned 
that Peter meant chiefly, if not exclusively, the writings of 
the Old Testament, as they were then known to the Jews, as 
they had been transferred from the Synagogue to the Church, 
and as we now have them in our own hands. Here, then, lit- 
erally rendered, is what Peter affirms respecting the entire 
mass of ancient and venerable oracles therein contained: 
‘For not by man’s will was prophecy’—any prophecy—any 
thing deserving of the name, and that has ever been so re- 
garded by the people of God—‘ brought at any time? + It did 

* While the past tenses of γίνομαι are often used as corresponding parts of 
εἶναι, this is not true of the present. Here the distinction, as between /iev7 and 
esse, is, I believe, strictly maintained, and the neglect of it in some cases by our 
common version is perhaps always injurious to the sense. 

t οὐ γὰρ ϑελήματι ἀνϑρώπου ἠνέχϑη ποτέ (see the English margin; 1 Cor. 
9:7; 1 Thess. 2: 5, etc.) προφητεία, (Tischendorf, προῴ. ποτέ.) -- _ 


Lecture VIII—Chapter 1 : 20, 21 429 


not begin here. In no single instance was it the product of 
human speculation. It was ‘drought’—brought to the pro- 
phet as well as to us, nor had a human will, either ours or his, 
the least agency in that first bringing of it, any more than in 
the case of the Voice that sounded forth from the excellent 
Glory at the Transfiguration, * or in that of the sun’s rays. 
As regards prophecy men were simply the instruments 
employed in delivering it to us—the channels merely of its 
transmission. They delivered what they received—nothing 
more—nothing less—and just as they received it. ‘But, 
says Peter, in strongest opposition to all idea of a human 
authorship, ‘ #oved’—impelled, borne along, like ships before 
a breeze—‘ by the Holy Ghost, spake holy men of God’—or, as 
some read, ‘men spake from God, + that is, sent and empow- 
ered by God to speak in His behalf, and repeating only what 
they had heard in His pavilion fresh from His lips, or seen in 
the light of His presence. The other reading, however, is in 
this respect no less significant. The prophets were ‘oly 
men of God’—holy in their relation to God, as separated and 
consecrated to a holy function, and used by God in His im- 
mediate service. They were also, in at least the great majori- 
ty of cases, men personally holy, devoted to God's fear, and 
jealous for His truth and law and honor. But neither their 
official nor their personal holiness accounts for any one of 
their prophecies. In prophesying they were, so to speak, 
possessed, caught up, and carried forward, by the Holy 
Ghost. Like that Divine chariot which Ezekiel saw by the 
river of Chebar, ‘whithersoever the Spirit was to go, they 
went, and this equally whether at the time they understood 
their own prophecy or not, and whether in any particular in- 
stance they acted with the conscious concurrence of their 
own faculties or not. In each and every instance it is true 
of them, and it is all that is essential for us to know, that 
they ‘spake’ under the impulse and sway of the Heavenly 


* Comp. with ἠνέχϑη here the ἐνεχϑείσης of v. 17. 

ἱ ἀλλ᾽ (Sin. ἀλλά) ὑπὸ Πνεύματος ‘Ayiov φερόμενοι (comp. Acts 27 : 15, 17) ἐλά- 
Anoav ἅγιοι Θεοῦ ἄνϑρωποι. For ἅγιοι Tischendorf reads ἀπό, (B.) Lachmann 
inserts τοῦ before Θεοῦ, (A.) 


430 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


Breath, as the organ sounds only under the hand of its mas- 
ter. They ‘sfake’—they wrote—no more can be said of 
them than that. What they should speak or write, and how, 
were matters not within their own control, but determined 
for them by the Holy Ghost. Of the seventy elders of Israel 
in the wilderness we read: ‘And it came to pass that, when 
the Spirit rested upon them, they prophesied and did not 
cease. The same thing holds good of all the holy prophets. 
They were simply the Spirit’s spokesmen or amanuenses, and 
for that reason, like Moses in his relation to Aaron, were ‘in- 
stead of God’ to all to whom their word came.* Their pure, 
calm, bright souls—to avail ourselves of an illustration of one 
of the greatest Fathers of. the Church—become as it were 
mirrors of the Divine energy, reflecting the image without 
confusion, and unstained by aught of fleshly passion.t 


The great and fundamental lesson, therefore, taught us in 
these two verses, is the Divine origin of all the prophecies of 
Scripture. .And it is well for us again to remember, what is his- 
torically quite certain—nothing more so—that, when Peter 
and Paul speak of Scripture, they mean at least that same 
Old Testament which at this very day constitutes three 
fourths of our completed Bible. How familiar Christ and 
His Apostles were with these old writings, how deeply they 
reverenced them, and with what confidence they drew from 
them, as from an inexhaustible storehouse, arguments and 
illustrations in defence of the Christian faith, is apparent 
from every page of the New Testament. And from that one 
fact you can safely be left to estimate for yourselves at some- 
thing like its true value the intelligence, to say nothing of 
the piety or the modesty, of those nowadays who think that 
they have long since outgrown these swaddling-clothes, as 
they regard them, of the infant Church. Alas! and what 
would they have us to substitute in their room? Nothing 
better than the shifting conceits and baseless prognostica- 
tions of this world’s wisdom, or the frozen dreams of a Swe- 
denborg, or the inflated imbecilities and dismal drivel of our 


| © Ezek. ir 20. SH Σ. 41: 10. + Basil, Comm. in Esatam, Procem. 


Lecture VIII—Chapter 1 : 20, 21. 431 


modern spiritualists! For these we are to give up Moses, | 
David, Isaiah, Daniel, and all the other holy names! 

The insane wickedness of such a course glares upon us, 
the moment we recover a firm hold on the principle urged in 
the text, that here—here and nowhere else—we have ‘not 
the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God.’ The 
power of that very promise which the Lord gave His Apostles 
for their special encouragement had already been abundantly 
experienced by them of old time: ‘It is not ye that speak, 
but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.’ In 
reading the Bible, therefore—the Old Testament no less than 
the New—we are ever to bear it on our hearts, that we are 
listening not so much to holy men speaking for God, as to 
God Himself speaking through them to us. And can God's 
word ever grow old? or sink into the feebleness and aimless- 
ness of second childhood? Is it not rather, like Himself, 
‘the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever’ ?* 

Nor does any one portion of the Bible carry on its face a 
brighter signature of Divinity than does ‘the prophetic word.’ 
God Himself glories in it as one of His most incontestable 
and inalienable prerogatives: ‘I am God, and there is none 
else ; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end 
from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that 
are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will 
do all my pleasure.’ In the same spirit is His contempt- 
uously indignant challenge to all His base rivals of the 
heathen idolatry: ‘Produce your cause, saith the Lord; 
bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob. 
Let them bring them forth, and show us what shall happen: 
let them show the former things, what they be, that we may 
consider them, and know the latter end of them ; or declare 
us things for to come. Show the things that are to come 
hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods,’ Ὁ 

Yes, what neither human nor angelic wisdom could do for 
us has been done through the power and grace of the Holy 
Ghost. If it be true that His voice no longer falls in audible 


* Thess 2alsee Matty rol 20; ΗΕ 137 ὃ. 
t Is. 46: 9, 10; 41 : 21-23. 


432 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


accents on the ear—if it is not now heard, as in the days of 
old, speaking in visions to the prophets, or startling the 
silence of the skies—yet let us continually bless God that its 
many ancient revelations are not lost. It was for no object 
of slight or transient interest, that the Eternal did in former 
times maintain so frequent, and so direct, an intercourse with 
sinfulmen. And if the fiery shapes that crowded the top of 
Sinai, and praised God at the Nativity, have long since dis- 
appeared from the paths of our daily life, yet at their depart- 
ure they left a trail of glory behind them, and the ever-multi- 
plying echoes of their song still resound through the universe. 
Know ye that in this old book, the Bible, much more gene- 
rally patronized by us, I fear, than studied, we have the sum 
of all-the communications which Heaven has made to earth. 
The scattered beams, which ever and anon leaped forth from 
the great Source of light, are here collected as in a radiant 
shrine—a flaming cresset—‘a lamp shining in a dark place.’ 
And of this entire cluster of revelations it must be said gen- 
erally, that they all bear a prophetic character. ‘ Whatsoever 
things were written aforetime, were written for our learning, 
that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might 
have hope.’ , 

What serious mind can calmly converse for even a brief 
period with this wondrous volume, and not feel itself brought 
under the powers of a yet future world? | We stand, so to 
speak, in the midst of a magnificent temple, made with- 
out hands, rich in the most stupendous scenery, and filled 
with the odors of sweet incense, and with responsive strains 
of complicated and far-reaching harmonies, but of which the 
innermost glory is the Throne of God and the Lamb, encir- 
cled by the Rainbow of the covenant, adored by the myriads 
of the redeemed and the outer circles of the angelic hierarchy, 
and shedding a holy effulgence, that shall never grow dim, 
into all heights and depths of the new heavens and the new 
earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.* 

Such, I repeat, is the Bible, and such preéminently is the 
Bible as God’s prophetic word. And if Apostles said to their 


* Rom. 15:45 Heb. 6:5; Rev. 4:3; 2 Pet. 3: 33. 


Lecture VIIT—Chapter 1 : 20, 21. 433 


churches, ‘Ye do well that ye take heed to it, what would 
they say to those of you who slight it, neglect it, rather dis- 
like to hear about it, care less for it than you do for your 
novels, and your political speeches, and your daily newspapers ? 
Surely the least that could be said is, Ye do 2//—ye dishonor 
God, and ye defraud and abuse your own souls. 


BeCTURE TX: 


ΡΣ ΚΟ OX Rey 


‘ Bur there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be 
false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even 
denying the Lord that bought them,’and bring upon themselves swift destruction. 
And many shall follow their pernicious ways ; by reason of whom the way of 
truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with 
feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time 
lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.’- 


HERE the writer suddenly changes his tone. The change 
is, indeed, at once so sudden and so striking, that some have 
been willing to regard this chapter as an interpolation by an- 
other hand. But this free-and-easy method of solving sup- 
posed Biblical difficulties, though frequently resorted to by a 
certain class of critics, is in almost every case utterly unwar- 
rantable and presumptuous. Certainly the present instance 
furnishes no occasion whatever for calling in the help of an 
expedient so rude qnd violent, the change of tone being suffi- 
ciently accounted for by the change of theme, and by the ac- 
cessions, so to speak, to the apostolic of the prophetic spirit. 
With just as good reason one might fall to speculating and 
disputing, whether the Sermon on the Mount or the divine 
tenderness of the Farewell Discourse could have proceeded 
from the same lips that denounced woes on the Scribes and 
Pharisees, and depicted the desolation of the temple, the rise 
of false Christs, and the terrible signs that shall herald the 
Lord’s return and the judgment of the great day. 

Another question that has greatly exercised the ingenuity 
of scholars, and to very little profit, is that regarding the rela- 


Lecture [X —Chapter 2 : 1-3. 435 


tion of this second chapter to the Epistle of Jude. On com- 
paring the two you will find that, not only is the main sub- 
ject the same in both, but there is also a remarkable similarity 
in the method of treatment ; as in the Old Testament a psalm 
or a prophecy is sometimes repeated with more or less varia- 
tion by the same or a different writer.* In every such case 
the thought naturally occurs that the one document was 
known to, and made use of by, whoever composed the other ; | 
and the point in debate here is, Which of these two Epistles 
is the earlier? Did Peter copy Jude, or Jude Peter ?—not a 
matter of much consequence, you might suppose, either way. 
It has, however, as I have intimated, provided not a few in- 
terpreters with a favorite opportunity for the display of their 
critical sagacity, or of their arbitrary caprice.} Without 
troubling you with details that could scarcely be made inter- 
esting, I content myself with saying that, considering Peter's 
position in the Church as one of its ‘ very chiefest Apostles’ $ 
—the prophetic cast of the chapter now before us, whereas 
Jude’s tone is throughout historical—and the express refer- 
ence, as it would appear, by the latter (v. 17) to our third 
chapter, (v. 3,) I have, for my part, no difficulty in resting in 
the opinion that the chronological relation of the two Epistles 
to each other is such as might be rightly indicated by their 
respective places in the canon. 

Let us then, without further delay, proceed with the ex- 
position. 


Like most other New Testament predictions that relate to 
the present dispensation, that which we have now to examine 
is a prophecy not of good, but of evil. There is not a word in 
it about any victorious advance of the truth against the powers 
of darkness, or about the continuous enlargement of the 


Ἔ Comp. Ps, 18 with 2 Sam. ch. 22; Ps. 14 with Ps. 53; Is. ch. 36-39 with 
2 Kings ch. 18-20; Is. 2 : 2-4 with Mic. 4: I-3, etc 

{ For a fair specimen of the insolence that sometimes passes for higher criti- 
cism, the reader is referred to De Wette’s treatment of this chapter. It will 
also be found that nearly every point in the comparison of style, that is urged in 
favor of the priority of Jude, is by others (as Dietlein and Fronmiiller) turned 
with at least equal plausibility to support the opposite conclusion. 

ΤΟ (Gyoyey, ἘΠῚ; τ᾿ 


436 Lectures on .the Second Epistle of Peter. 


Church, and the consequent disappearance of the idols and 
all other forms of superstition and error; not one hint about 
the conversion of the world. No doubt, these ideas, in spite 
of many heavy discouragements and adverse signs, still go- 
vern to a great extent the current popular anticipations of the 
future. But we are indebted for them chiefly to the mission- 
ary activity of the age, and to the somewhat loose, declama- 
tory prognostications of the missionary platform, not at all to 
the teaching of Christ and His Apostles.. Of that teaching the 
present chapter is no more than a fair sample; and it needs 
but a glance to perceive that what it treats of is rather the 
entrance and growth of evil within the Church itself. It de- 
picts the development of ‘the mystery of iniquity,’ * and with 
a stern indignation describes the principles, and character, 
and successes, and inevitable final doom of the errorists who 
should arise ; and all the while the only ground of consolation 
presented to the faithful is the assurance of their own deliver- 
ance from the judgments that shall overwhelm the ungodly. 

The writer had been striving to build up his brethren in 
faith and holiness on the foundation of the Apostles and Pro- 
phets, by whose twofold testimony every word is established. 
But while sedulously executing the charge to feed his Master’s 
sheep, he by no means shrank from that other duty of the 
shepherd, the guarding of the flock from ravening wolves, of 
whose approach the Master had given early warning.f And 
you will observe that the mention of the holy prophets, at the 
end of the preceding chapter, supplied a ready link of transi- 
tion to the topic of the present section, by recalling to mind 
the contrary experience also of the ancient Israel to whom 
those prophets had been sent. ‘ But there were also false pro- 
phets among the people, besides the true, of whom I have just 
spoken, ‘as also among you, as formerly among them, ‘here 
shall be false teachers. ἢ 

Never and nowhere has Satan, the father of lies, any more 
than God—to speak reverently— left himself without witness’ 


PQ ynhess ona. | Eph. 2: 20; Matt, 18165 7): 15; John2neitz. 
t ἐγένοντο δὲ καὶ ψευδοπροφῆται ἐν τῷ λαῷ, ὡς καὶ ἐν ὑμῖν ἔσονται ψευδοδιδάσ- 
καλοι, (found nowhere else.) 


Lecture [X.—Chapter 2 : 1-3. 437 


among men. But of all his devices there is perhaps not one 
in which he loves so well.to exert his malignant skill, as in 
suborning God’s own professed servants to further his baleful 
cause. Such has been his policy from the beginning. While 
Israel was yet in the wilderness, their great leader, in the 
same breath in which he foretold the coming of a Prophet of 
divine authority, sought also to prepare them for the appear- 
ance, not only of prophets who should speak to them in the 
name of other gods, but of prophets who would speak words 
in the name of Israel’s God, which He had not commanded 
them to speak. And in the wilderness itself, with the shadow 
of Jehovah’s miraculous presence resting on the camp, if 
Balaam, a heathen prophet, was brought from Pethor to curse 
the people, there were found no less, even in the family of 
the high-priest, those who offered strange fire before the Lord. 
And so matters continued throughout all the subsequent 
history. ‘ There were also false prophets among the people’— 
not merely such as the four hundred and fifty prophets of 
Baal, and the four hundred prophets of the groves, in the 
days of Elijah, but such as Hananiah who withstood Jeremiah 
in the house of the Lord, in the presence of the priests and 
of all the people, and the many others who, like him, ‘ pro- 
phesied out of their own hearts, following their own spirit, 
and seeing nothing, according to the description given of 
them by Ezekiel, until at last almost the entire nation was 
turned away from the truth of God to vanity and lies.* 

Nor did even the coming of Christ in the flesh, and the 
descent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost, avail to exclude the 
spirit of error from the Church. The mists of hell were agi- 
tated, not dispelled, and Satan, as he watched the unfolding 
of God’s truth and grace, and the shortening of his own time, 
only the more stirred up his wrath, and plied more fiercely his 
wiles and enginery of delusion. ‘ Beware,’ said Christ, toward 
the beginning of His ministry, ‘of false prophets,’ and near 
the close of His life He repeated the warning with redoubled 
earnestness. Other predictions of the same sort, and equally 


* Acts 14 : 17; Deut. 18 : 18, 20; 13 : 1-5 ; Numb. 22: 5; Lev. 10:1; 1 Kings 
£8 τοι; Jer. 28 : 13/Bz 13 22, 5, Εἴς; 22 : 25, 2; Zeph.:3:2/4: 


438 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


explicit, occur throughout the New Testament, especially in 
the later apostolic writings, as in the Epistles to Timothy, and 
in the Apocalypse. Peculiarly interesting are those solemn 
words in Paul’s address to the elders of that very church of 
Ephesus, in which Timothy is said to have chiefly labored, and 
which was no doubt one of the principal churches embraced 
in the superscription of these Epistles of Peter : ‘ Also’—in 
addition to the grievous wolves that shall assail you from 
without—‘ also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking 
perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.’ The co- 
incidence is striking between this and the phraseology of our 
text: ‘Also among you’—in the midst of you, belonging to 
you, of your own number—‘ there shall be; as by an indige- 
nous, spontaneous growth, ‘false teachers, or teachers of false- 
hood ; just as the false prophets of Israel were themselves 
Israelites.* The tares were to germinate and spring up in the 
same field with the wheat. 

I press this point as one that has a bearing on the question, 
before adverted to, of the relation of our Epistle to that of 
Jude. One consideration, you recollect, favoring the priority 
of Peter, was the fact that he speaks of the appearance of 
these enemies of the truth as something yet future, whereas 
Jude deals with them as having already appeared. The force ot 
this argument some f seek to evade by suggesting that Peter 
himself was well aware at the time he wrote'of the existence 
of the false teachers in other sections of the Church, but that 
he employs the future tense simply because they had not yet 
actually arrived among those whom he now addressed. The 
reply, however, is unsatisfactory, if, as we have seen reason to 
believe, the evil was to be of home growth. 

It is true, indeed, that Peter’s language is quite reconcil- 
able with what is abundantly clear from the New Testament, 
to wit, that its many prophetic intimations of heretical division 
had begun to pass into history as early as the Apostles’ days, 
and nowhere with greater luxuriance than in Asia Minor.t 


* Rev. 12 : 12; Matt.7': 055 24. : 11, 24; 1 Tim. 4: 1-3) 2 Dimy3 5 
16 : 13,,14, ete. ; Acts 20 : 29, 30. 
+ Wiesinger. t See pp. 347-8. 





Lecture IX. —Chapter 2 : 1-3. 439 


But the prophecy reached beyond that age, and even now its 
significance is-far enough from being exhausted. 


The severity of the designation, ‘ fa/se teachers, is imme- 
diately justified in what follows : ‘ex who privily shall bring 
in damnable’—or rather destructive— heresies ;’ literally here- 
sies of destruction,* such as must involve in destruction all 
who adhered to them. It should, however, be understood that 
during the first century the word eresy, which we have adopt- 
ed from the Greek, seems scarcely to have attained to its pre- 
sent meaning of serious doctrinal error. Originally it was 
equivalent to our word chozce, whether as expressing the act 
of choosing or the thing chesen, and then it easily came to 
signify the choosing of a side or party, or the party or side so 
chosen. Now it is in this last sense that the term occurs 
elsewhere.in the New Testament, as when we read of the 
heresy or sect of the Sadducees—the heresy or sect of the Phart- 
sees—the heresy or sect of the Nazarenes—and so forth ;f nor 
is there any reason for changing this sense in the present 
instance. The result of the false teaching would be the 
stealthy introduction of sects or factions into the household 
of faith ; stealthy, inasmuch as that would not be the avowed 
object, but on the contrary, the beginnings of the mischief 
would be under fair pretences of superior knowledge and love, 
and the progress of it slow and gradual. ‘By this word,’ says 
Calvin, ‘he marks the craft of Satan and of all the impious 
who fight under the same flag, in that they will slip in by 
crooked windings and as it were through mines.’§ To this 
style of operation we find frequent allusion elsewhere, 85 
when the Lord described these ravening wolves as coming to 


* οἵτινες παρεισάξουσιν (the verb is not found elsewhere in the New Testa- 
ment; but comp. παρεισάκτους and παρεισῆλϑον of Gal. 2 : 4, and παρεισέδυσαν 
of Jude 4) αἱρέσεις ἀπωλὲξίας, (the same word as in the last clause.) 

+ The other places in which the word occurs are Acts 5:17; 15:53 24:5, 
ΤΑ 26 yh ΖΘ ΣΖΥῚ COMMIT πτὸ " (0 41. κ.:.20. 

t Those (as De Wette and Huther) who hold to the post-apostolic origin of 
the Epistle, have less difficulty in here applying the later ecclesiastical interpre- 
tation. 

§ ‘Hoc verbo Satanz astutiam notat, et impiorum omnium qui sub eodem 
vexillo militant ; quod obliquis anfractibus et quasi per cuniculos subituri sint.’ 


440 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


us in sheep’s clothing, and Paul pointed the finger of scorn at 
such as ‘creep into houses.’ But the tendency of evil is still 
to ‘increase unto more ungodliness—evil men and seducers 
waxing worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.’* 
And so the secret working of these errorists would come to 
light in mutual alienations and divisions within the commu- 
nion of the Church. The rupture of the ‘one body’ would be 
but the manifestation of a departure from the ‘one faith,’ + 
and the destructive character of the schisms was to be inferred 
from the fatal character of the errors in which they should 
originate: ‘ even denying the Lord that bought them. 

All deadly heresy, in the English sense of that term, in- 
volves a denial of Christ as Lord and as Redeemer, or, let us 
say, a denial of His lordship as founded on His redemptive 
work. For it is to be noted.that the Greek word ᾧ here for 
Lord is not that § which is commonly so rendered, but one 
from which, though with an aggravation of the meaning, we 
get our despot, and which is five times in the New Testament 
translated master, when used of the head of a family in his 
relation to his household.|| And such is plainly its use also in 
the case before us, where, therefore, as in the parallel Jude 4, 
it is better to retain this original idea: ‘ even denying the 
Master who bought them’—bought them, that is, from under 
the yoke of Satan and the bondage of the law to be His ser- 
vants, and that at no less a price than His own ‘precious 
blood.’ (1 Pet. 2:19.) Now, as recognition of Christ’s ab- 
solute right of property in us, growing out of His great act 
of self-sacrifice, is the highest glory and joy of all true Chris- 
tians, who ever make it their boast that they ‘are not their 
own, but bought with a price, ** so the surest mark of apostacy, 
and the very climax of heresy, is the denial of it. 

Nor was it long in the history of the Church before that 
climax was reached. Again and again during the first centu- 
ries was the attempt made by the Gnostic and other sects, and 


os Wilkie 79 ws 5 2a ibrar, 5 τὸ, 11; 2: 16. + Eph. 4: 4, 5. 
+ δεσπότης. § κύριος. 
| Pim OMT 2. 2 ΠΣ 2 ie 21s) Lit. 2)O ra ΑΒΕ ΖΦ 18: 

ἘΣ TT COL. Os 10, ΖῸΡ 7.5 22) 25. 


ss 


Lecture [X—Chapter 2 : 1-3. 441 


under various forms and pretexts it has since been continually 
renewed, and never with a more persistent and shameless im- 
piety than in our own day, to degrade Jesus Christ, the Son 
of God, from His place of Divine supremacy, while His blood, 
the one Divine ransom whereby the covenant of redemption 
was confirmed, has been accounted a common thing.* 

And what, we are now to ask, has been the effect of all © 
these concentrated and unrelenting assaults on the cross and 
the throne of our Lord and Saviour? That cross and that 
throne, planted both of them by the hand of God, stand still 
’ unshaken, and so they will stand for ever. But there is one 
effect that in no instance has failed to follow: ‘ dringing upon 
themselves swift destruction. While bent only on dishonoring 
Christ, and on bringing their evil principles and practices into 
the Church, they did not perceive that they were thereby at 
the same time bringing down ruin on their own heads. The 
form of the original} indicates that the one action is simul- 
taneous, as it were identical, with the other. Sinning against — 
Christ, they wronged their own soul: hating Him, they loved 
death. They laid wait for their own blood ; they lurked pri- 
vily for their own lives. They cut themselves off from the 
fountain of life. They became blighted branches on the 
Heavenly Vine—‘trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, 
twice dead, plucked up by the roots.’ For them ‘there re- 
mained no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking 
for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the 
adversaries. And as their destruction was utter, it was also, 
like the lightning’s stroke, szz/t—speedy, sudden, inevitable, 
remediless. Dying out in darkness from among men, in that 
very day their thoughts perished; and Him, whom they de- 
nied as their Master and Redeemer, they awake in horror to 
confess as their almighty and eternal Foe. ¢ 


Still other effects, however, of their false teaching come: 
into view in the second verse: ‘And many shall follow their 


* Heb. τὸ : 29, (κοινόν.) 

7 In the apposition by asyndeton of ἀρνούμενοι and ἐπάγοντες. 

t Ps. 7:16; 36:9; 146:4; Prov. 8:36; 1:18; John 15:6; Jude 123; 
Heb. 10 : 26, 27. 


442 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


destructive ways, or, according to the marginal reading now 
received, their lascivious ways—their lasctviousnesses*— by 
reason of whom the way of the truth} shall be evil spoken of- 

The strong affinity that exists between heresy and a de- 
praved morality—the two acting and reacting reciprocally 
both as cause and effect—is clearly implied here and in the 
᾿ sequel of the chapter, and, however numerous may be the 
cases of individual exception, has been often illustrated on a 
large scale in the history of Christendom. Our own times 
afford proof enough that no doctrine, however senseless and Ὁ 
monstrous, which under the guise of a religious faith minis- ἢ 
ters to the sensual appetites of men, will ever want followers. 
So it was even in the churches of the Apostles. ‘Many walk,’ 
wrote Paul to that of Philippi, ‘of whom I have told you often, 
and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of 
the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose God 
is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind 
earthly things.’ Nay, some of the early sectaries, ‘turning,’ 
as Jude (4) expresses it, ‘the grace of our God into lascivious- 
ness,’ are said to have inculcated an unrestrained indulgence 
‘of all the animal propensities as a matter not merely of Chris- 
‘tian liberty, but of obligation ; ‘axzd many,’ as had been fore- 
told, ‘followed’ at once their instructions and their example. 
Impudently maintaining still a Christian profession, they ‘in 
works,’ not less emphatically than in word, ‘denied the Mas- 
iter, $ 

‘By reason of whom, it is added—the false teachers§ or 
their followers, || or both—‘ che way of truth’—the truth, the 
one, only, saving truth—‘ shall be evil spoken of’ Very often 
in the book of the Acts we find the Christian discipline of 
faith and practice called, according to the old Hebrew idiom, 
a way—‘ the way’—‘the way of salvation’—‘the way of the 
Lord.’** Here, in opposition to the perversions of the false 
teachers, as well as to all the wisdom of this world, it is ‘ ¢#e 


* ἀσελγεΐαις (Sin. etc.) instead of ἀπωλείαις.----ἘῸΥ ἐξακολουϑήσουσιν, see p. 
402, note f. 

ἱ ἡ ὁδὸς τῆς ἀληϑείας. of ΡΣ] et 8, Το: ΤΠ ΤΕ ΠΟ: 

§ Wiesinger, etc. || Fronmiiller, etc. 
ἘΝῚ Ps. T1920, 30; Actsi0/:\2; 16:17; 18: 25,26); 10:0. 25; 22 eee eae 


Lecture [X.—Chapter 2 : 1-3. 443 


way of the truth’—Christ Himself being the Living Way, the 
Incarnate Truth*—-and when such as were supposed to be 
walking in that way misrepresented it in their lives, the Jews 
and the heathen, looking on with no friendly eyes, would be 
sure to misunderstand and malign, or, as the Greek word is, to 
blaspheme, it. We are told accordingly that, in the second 
century, ‘many of the Gnostic maxims and tenets being not 
only foolish and ridiculous, but fundamentally vile and dis- 
graceful, the Christians were looked upon either as persons 
devoid of reason, and worthy only to be held in derision, or 
else as a set of unprincipled wretches that could not be treat- 
ed with too much severity.’ + Against this occasion of offence 
to those without the Apostles are continually warning the 
churches, and no one more earnestly than Peter himself, you 
may remember, in the First Epistle. 


The next verse affords us a little further insight into the 
spirit and methods of these false teachers: ‘ Aud through cov- 
etousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of 
you. The meaning is not: They will dispose of you as of 
merchandise for gain;§ nor yet: They will get possession 
and control of you as of merchandise ; || but more generally : 
They will use you merely for purposes of trade **—will turn 
the Church of God itself into a market, as the Temple was 
by those who had no higher interest to prosecute within its 
sacred precincts than the sale of oxen and sheep and doves. 
But here was to be a traffic even more impious and abomina- 
ble than that which kindled the wrath of the Son of God, jea- 
lous for His Father’s honor—a traffic, not in the beasts that 
perish, but, like that of the Apocalyptic Babylon, in the 
‘bodies and souls of men,’ for whom the Son of God died. ++ 

The impelling motive is in both cases the same. ‘/zit 


* John 14: ᾿ ἱ Mosheim’s Historical Commentaries, Cent. ii. § 41. 
fv Tim, 6215 ΤΊ 2°:)5)5\Jamesi2’s7';) wr Pet 22123 3 : 16. 
§ As eerie is used by the LXX. at Hos. 12: 
|| So at Prov. 3 : 14. 
** Comp. James 4: ithe only other text where the word occurs. 
tt John 2:14; Ps. 49:12; Rev. 18 : 13, (see the Revision ;) Rom. 14 : 15. 


ΓΕ ἐν. 


444 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


covetousness’—such is Peter's phrase, not through, but living 
and moving in an atmosphere of greed—these men were to 
ply their horrid commerce ; and this feature of their character, 
which reappears at the 14th and 15th verses, is no less pro- 
minent in the companion picture by Jude, (11, 16.) Again 
and again Paul put his indignant brand on this same charac- 
teristic of some with whom already he himself had to contend— 
men who ‘supposed that gain was godliness, teaching things 
that they ought not for filthy lucre’s sake, serving not our 
Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly.’ * Nor can any one 
need to be told of the gigantic fulfilment of our Apostle’s 
word throughout the ages of the Roman apostasy, and in the 
perhaps still more sordid practices of many deceivers now 
abroad in the world. 

In every such instance, moreover, one main instrument of 
the deception has been what Peter calls ‘fezgned words’— 
speeches craftily moulded} for the purpose, both as to matter 
and manner, ‘good words and fair speeches, enticing words,’ 
the product wholly of human art, having, it may be, a “show of 
wisdom, but without any foundation in historic truth, and 
empty of all Divine life and power.t Some of these words 
we shall have occasion to advert to more distinctly by and 
by. 


Meanwhile, the Apostle again interrupts his description of 
the men, with a reassertion of their coming doom. ‘ Whose 
judgment now of a long time’—or, more literally, for whom 
the judgment from of old§—‘lingereth not, and their destruc- 
tion || slumbereth not. 

For these and all other such wicked men there is a judg- 
ment—the very judgment suited to their character and crimes— 
‘from eternity ordained, and foretold in Holy Writ,’ ** the exe- 
cution of which must be ‘ ¢hetr destruction. Long ago, that 


Sr VamvOlss ΠΑ 1 It >, Rom. 161: 18: 

+ πλαστοῖς (in the New Testament only here) λόγοις. 

PROM τὸ; 5.5. [90]. 2. 2.,.22. 

§ οἷς τὸ κρῖμα ἔκπαλαι. Inch. 3 : 5 is the only other New Testament instance 
of ἔκπ. 

|| As in v. 1. ** Estius. Comp. Jude 4. 


Lecture IX.—Chapter 2 : 1-3. 445 


judgment started on its destroying path, and the fate of sinning 
angels, and the deluge, and the overthrow of Sodom and 
Gomorrah, were but incidental illustrations of its power, nor 
has it ever since ‘ /izgered,’ as if now it had no work on hand,* 
or for a moment ‘ s/wmbered’ on the way. It advances still, 
strong and vigilant as when first it sprang from the bosom of 
God, and will not fail to reach the mark to which it was 
pointed ‘from of old. + 

And shall such indeed, you may now ask, be the end of 
any that were ‘dought’ by the blood of the cross? The sug- 
gestion is as natural as it is startling, and accordingly there is 
perhaps no text that is more confidently relied on by the ad- 
vocates of what is called universal redemption.£ And true it 
is that, if this passage and a few others such were all that we 
had to guide us in the consideration of the question, there 
would probably never have been any question on the subject 
at all. But it must be admitted, and it is what those who 
have the most deeply pondered the matter will be the least 
likely to deny, that neither view is free from difficulties, 
which may not find their satisfactory solution in the present 
state of dimness and partial knowledge. We cannot here 
enter on an extended theological discussion. Only, by way 
of check to the hasty dogmatism that thinks by a one-sided 
reference to two or three phrases to decide so grave a dispute, 
and to neutralize the various texts and arguments that go to 
sustain the doctrine of a limitation, not certainly in the in- 
trinsic value of the atonement, but in the purpose of grace 
therein, it is sufficient to object to any such summary proce- 
dure that even the present passage may possibly admit of a 
perfectly reasonable interpretation on that view, by applying 
to it a principle that everywhere pervades apostolic address to 
the churches. Those churches, we know, contained many 
unworthy members ; yet, because of the profession common 
to all, what was true only of the faithful is, for the purposes 
of ministerial warning and exhortation, continually assumed 


* οὐκ ἀργξι. t+ Comp. Lect. on Thess. p. 80. 
1 Barnes: ‘This one passage demonstrates the doctrine of general atone- 
ment.’ 


446 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


to be true of all, as that they were chosen by God, before the 
world began, redeemed by Christ, sanctified by the Holy 
Spirit, and heirs of eternal life. For example, some of these 
same false teachers were in all probability among those ad- 
dressed in the First Epistle (1 : 18, 19) as having been ‘ re- 
deemed from their vain conversation with the precious blood of 
Christ, and they may have been glanced at in the first chapter 
of the present Epistle, where the writer speaks of such as might 
‘forget the cleansing away of their old sins, * and there is no 
doubt that he refers to them toward the close of this second 
chapter as having ‘known the way of righteousness,’ and 
‘escaped the pollutions of the world’ through that knowledge. 
Nor should the fact by any means be overlooked that, for 
these important religious attainments and opportunities, they 
were indebted solely to,Christ’s grace and gospel. So far as 
it went, there was in their case also a real redemption from 
idolatry, ignorance, and fleshly lusts. But all this is very far 
from proving that the Saviour died for them in any such 
sense as that in which ‘the Good Shepherd gave His life for 
the sheep.’ + 


There are, however, many other inferences that may be 
safely drawn from these verses. 

1. They teach us the futility of insisting, as has sometimes 
been done, on having even now what might be called a pure 
Church. ‘It must needs be,’ said our Lord, ‘ that offences 
come.” And said Paul: ‘There must be.also heresies ’—that 
is, divisions, sects, factions—‘ among you.’ ὁ But 

2. It is none the less the duty of the friends of truth and 
righteousness to maintain the spirit of a vigilant and strenuous 
resistance to the assaults of error and corruption. The apos- 
tolic writings are full of warnings on that subject. 

3. That a doctrine or a practice has many followers, even 
among church members, affords but a poor presumption that 
it deserves to be followed. ‘Many,’ said our Lord, ‘shall 

come in my name—and shall deceive many. . . . And then 


* Comp. pp. 383-5, and Lect. on Thess. p. 59. + John 10: 11. 
PeMatt. 18.: 72 τ Cor. ἘΠ᾿: 10; 


Lecture IX.—Chapter 2 : 1--3. 447 


shall many be offended. . . . And many false prophets shall 
rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall 
abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” * How significant 
and solemn is this calm and repeated announcement of the 
multitude of the deceivers and their dupes from the lips of 
Him who was the Wisdom and Word of God, and the despised 
and rejected of men! 

4. Another point which the Apostle, both here and in what 
follows, labors earnestly to enforce, is the certain and irre- 
trievable ruin of ungodly men. However, for a brief period, 
they may ‘ practise and prosper, and though according to 
human reckoning sentence against their evil works is ‘not 
executed speedily,’ yet the day is really fast approaching when 
of them all it shall be said: ‘Surely Thou didst set them in 
slippery places: Thou castedst them down into destruction. 
How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment! they 
are utterly consumed with terrors.’ + 

5. Finally, let us bless God that, through the waste wilder- 
ness of obstruction, deceit, and delusion, His own holy word 
has clearly marked for us ‘the way of the truth.’ There, how- 
ever few the travellers, let us confidently walk, and, through 
whatever perils and sorrows, we shall find it to be no less the 
way of safety and peace. 


* Matt, 24 : 5, 10-12. Ἷ Dane 8.12; Becl. ory Lt 5) Ps. 72.: 19; Τὴν 


LECTURE X. 


2 PETER 2: 4-9. 
i 

‘For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, 
and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; and 
spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of right- 
eousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly ; and turning the 
cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, 
making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; and deli- 
vered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked : (for that right- 
eous man, dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul 
from day to day with their unlawful deeds ;) the Lord knoweth how to deliver the 
godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be 
punished.’ ‘ 


THE announcement in the third verse of coming judgment 
on the false teachers was no vain threat. By three notable 
instances it is here shown that from the beginning,* and 
throughout the various spheres of existence, God has punished 
sin, and that neither rank, nor strength, nor numbers, has 
availed to shield transgressors from the stroke of His ven- 
geance. But inasmuch as in two of those instances there was 
given at the same time an equally signal illustration of God’s 
loving remembrance and care of His own children, when faith- 
ful found among the faithless, therefore the inference from the 
whole, as expressed in the oth verse, respects not merely the 
terrors and the certainty of the Lord’s retributive justice, but 
also the resources of His saving grace. 


The first case referred to is that of the sinning angels. 
In what their sin consisted, we are not particularly informed. 


* ἔκπαλαι, v. 3. See p. 445. 





Lecture X.—Chapter 2: 4-9. 449 


It seems to be intimated in one place that the ground of the 
devil’s condemnation was pride. And in the parallel verse in 
Jude’s Epistle, the angelic offence is expressed by saying that 
they ‘kept not their first estate ’—or, as in the margin, their 
principality— but left their own habitation ;’ in other words, 
they broke bounds and deserted their prescribed station of 
subordinate rule.* These hints, however, are of so general a 
character, that they rather exemplify than interrupt the cha- 
racteristic reserve of Scripture on this subject. As for the 
opinion of some,f that both Jude and Peter were thinking of 
what we read in the 6th chapter of Genesis about the com- 
merce of ‘the sons of God’ with ‘the daughters of men,’ and 
that they simply followed the old notion which applies the 
former designation in that instance to angels, it rests, I am 
persuaded, on no sound critical basis. 

What is of more importance for us to know and remember 
is, that ‘ God spared not angels’—even angels—‘ when they 
sinned, § sin being that abominable thing which He will not 
endure, nor suffer to go unpunished, even in the mightiest of 
His creatures. No sooner, therefore, did it show itself among 
the angels, staining the brightness of those morning stars of 
creation, than the bond which had held them in blessed 
attendance on the Throne was sundered, and they fell, 


‘With hideous ruin and combustion, down 
To bottomless perdition.’ || 


God spared them not, even as He ‘spared not His own Son,’ 
when bearing but the sins of others. At the touch of wrath, 
their original strength and beauty withered, like grass cast 
into the oven. Great as seems to have been the number of 
them, God at once showed how easily He could dispense with 


. 

* 1 Tim. 3:6; Jude 6. + Dietlein, Wiesinger, etc. 

} The points chiefly relied on by the advocates of that opinion are (1) the jux- 
taposition in which the sin and punishment of the angels stand in Peter to the 
destruction of the antediluvians ; (2) the prominence given to the sin of unclean- 
ness in v. 10; and (3) the τούτοις of Jude 7, which is referred to ἀγγέλους of v. 
6. But it may be referred, like the οὗτοι of v. 8, to the wicked men whom Jude 
is denouncing, or to the zzhaditants of Sodom and Gomorrah. ι 

ὃ ἀγγέλων duagtnodvtwy—anarthrous, as in v. II. 

|| Milton, Par. Lost, i. 46, 47. 


450 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


their presence and service. He spared them not, but meted 
out to them judgment without mercy.* He spared them not, 
‘ but, casting them zo hell’—sinking them in the abyss of Zar- 
tarus ; that heathen word, from which comes the one em- 
ployed by Peter to mark the extreme remoteness to which 
they were hurled from the heights on which they had previous- 
ly stood—‘ delivered them ’—as prisoners, into close custody— 
‘to chains of darkness, being reserved for judgment ,’} or as 
Jude (6) expresses it: These angels God ‘hath reserved in 
everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the 
great day.’ 

‘Chains of darkness’! What phrase could give us a more 
appalling conception of the greatness of the change that has 
passed on spiritual beings, who themselves once shone in the 
uncreated Light, and were free of the universe, while ful- 
filling their Maker’s word? It tells us of their exclusion as 
felon outcasts from their former haunts of joy, and separation 
from the companionship of the blest, of the horror and hope- 
lessness of their present condition, and of the dire, invincible 
control in which they are there held. They are not, indeed, as 
yet confined within the walls of the prison-house that shall 
finally receive them. But, as they cannot stir one step with- 
out permission, so, wander where they may, they drag their 
chains after them, and remain inclosed in their own darkness,$ 
and on every side a horizon, black with the frown of God, 


shuts them in. 
‘Within them hell 
They bring, and round about them, nor from hell 
One step no more than from themselves can fly 


By change of place.’ || 


* Rom. 8 : 32; Matt. 6: 30; James 2: 13. 

[ἀλλὼ σειραῖς (Lachmann and Alford σεερῦις (A, B, C.—Sin. σιρδις) =o dens. 
Very many connect σειρᾶις with ταρταρώσας as a dative of the instrument or man- 
ner) ζόφου (in the New Testament only here, v. 17, and Jude 6, 13) ταρταρώσας, 
(in the New Testament only here,) παρέδωκεν (comp. Acts 8 : 3; 28 : 16, etc.) εἰς 
κρίσιν τηρουμένους, (so instead of τετηρουμένους all now read, except Lachmann, 
who gives κολαξομενοὺυς τηρξιν (Sin, A) as inv. 9. Our English translation seems 
to have come from the Vulgate zeservari through the older English versions.) 

{ Comp. Wis. 17 : 17, μιᾷ γὰρ ἁλύσει σκότους πάντες ἐδέϑησαν, by one chain of 
darkness they were all bound. 

§ Calvin on Jude 6: ‘ Quocunque pergant, secum trahunt sua vincula, et suis 
tenebris obvoluti manent.’ || Milton, Par. Lost, iv. 20-23. 


Lecture X.—Chapter 2 : 4-9. 451 


And yet—might we say—even this were tolerable but for 
their anticipations of what is to come. Well do they know 
that they are ‘veserved for judgment, and that the time is 
fixed when they too must all again appear before that same 
‘Holy One of God,’ at whose feet, while bearing the weakness 
of mortal flesh, they cowered shuddering. But from the pre- 
sence of His glory, and from the presence of His associate 
saints, whom they shall vex no more for ever, they shall then 
depart, not on new enterprises of unappeasable hate, but ‘into 
the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’ 
Such is the fate that has befallen, and that still awaits, these 
first leaders of revolt against the Supreme Majesty of heaven.* 


The second example of Divine severit¥ to which our Apos- 
tle appeals is that of the deluge,t though here, as in the pre- 
vious reference to the same catastrophe in the First Epistle, 
(3 : 20,) stress is laid also on the manifestation, even in that 
time of wrath, of the Divine goodness, like the gleam of the 
rainbow in the bosom of the storm. 

‘And spared not the old, or ancient ‘world, but kept Noah 
the eighth person’—that is, Noah with seven others, eight in 
all, eight and no more—‘a preacher of righteousness, when He 
brought the flood upon the world of the ungodly’ ~ Mark here 
a threefold contrast, between the character of Noah and that 
of his cotemporaries—between the number of the saved and 
that of the lost—between the security of the one class and the 
destruction of the other. 

‘Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and 
Noah walked with God’—is the simple but most honorable 
testimony borne to him in the original record. Long after- 


* Matt. 8:29; 25 : 41, (τὸ πῦρ τὸ αἰώνιον :) Mark 1 : 23-27, 34; 5: 7-133 
tT CORO: 2: Πδυ Ὁ ἜΓΤΟ. 

+ For which Jude substitutes the case of the unbelieving Israel in the wilder- 
ness. 

t ἀρχαίου... ἀλλ᾽ (Sin. ἀλλὰ) ὄγδοον Noe... ἐφύλαξε (rendered in our version 
as above everywhere else except Mark 10: 20 and 1 Tim. 1 : 21, and there keep 
would be equally suitable. In three instances, indeed, the imperative middle is 
properly rendered deware)... ἐπάξας, (the same verb as in v. 1 and Acts 5 : 28. 
The zz, here retained by our translators from the older English versions, does not 
belong to it.) 


452 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


wards we find him named again and again by God as one of 
three men— Noah, Daniel, and Job’—the most likely to pre- 
vail as intercessors for the guilty. Himself an ‘heir of the 
righteousness which is by faith, he preached—proclaimed *— 
at once faith and righteousness by his holy life and his warn- 
ing.voice, and by every blow that he struck in the building of 
theark. In all these ways he ‘ condemned the world’ around 
him, as impenitent, unbelieving, disobedient, ‘zszgodly. It 
was literally Noah against the world. ‘ The earth was corrupt 
before God ; and the earth was filled with violence. And God 
looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all 
flesh*had corrupted his way upon the earth’ And what 
Peter would impress upon us is just this, that the Divine jus- 
tice does not regard majorities, but deals with men, be they 
few or many, strictly according to their character. He ‘kept 
Noah, with those that were given to him of his kindred—cov- 
ered him with His own hand, and hid him within the shelter 
of the ark—alone secure in that first great ruin of the earth 
and heaven, when He ‘spared not the ancient world’ with all 
its gay, busy multitudes, but ‘ drought the flood upon the world 
of the ungodly. 


The last historical illustration in our text, as also in Jude, 
is drawn from the cities of the plain; and here again our 
Apostle brings out into equal prominence the gracious 
features of the scene. 

‘And, reducing to ashes ἢ the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, 
condemned them to§ an overthrow’—to utter and perma- 
nent subversion— making, or rather—for the judgment is 
thought of not merely as accomplished, but as still abiding— 
having made, ‘them an example of those that should afterward 


be ungodly’ ||—an example not so much for their warning as of 
their doom. 
* κήρυκα. 1 (Gen. (6%:/0; 11, 125 12: ΤᾺ τ 12.520}; ΕΤΟΥΣ 


t So τεφρόω (in the New Testament only here) is rendered by many from Guyse 
to Peile. Alford: durning to ashes. 

§ Comp. the other instances of κατακρίνω with a dative of the punishment, 
Matt. 20: 18; Mark 10: 33. 

| ὑπόδειγμα μελλόντων (in the four other cases of ὑπόδ, with a genitive our 
version translates as above; Heb. 4:11; 8:5; 9:23; James 5: 10) ἀσεβεῖν 





Ee 


Lecture X.—Chapter 2 : 4-9. 453 


To this ‘ erample, accordingly, there are frequent references 
in Scripture—as many, I believe, as twenty-one. That of 
Jude especially, besides its declaration of the sin of those 
cities, is of use in explaining the phrase before us in regard 
to their punishment: ‘Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities 
about them, having given themselves over in like manner as 
they to fornication, and gone away * after strange flesh, are 
set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal 


fire’ In other words, the fire that consumed those guilty 


cities was. really a blazing forth of the ‘eternal fire,’ (taking 
the word even in its strongest sense,) because it was imme- 
diately from God as the minister of His wrath ; 7 because, as 
such, it was irresistible and unquenchable ; and because of 
the utter desolation wrought by it $—a desolation, in so far 
at least and so long || as it shall be needed as ‘an example,’ 
perpetual and remediless.** As late as the fourth century of 
the Christian era, we hear the great preacher of the Eastern 
Church exclaiming, at the close of a vivid description of the. 
blighted region: ‘ All unfruitful, all barren, all an image of 
the former wrath, a pledge of that which is to come!’ f+ And 
in our own day it is even a disputed question, where Sodom 
and Gomorrah stood. On all these accounts their fate is 
peculiarly fitted to serve as one of the historical precursors 
and preluding exhibitions of the fate of the ungodly, when 
the world that now is shall perish, not by water, but by the 
‘fire’ that shall ‘ go before’ the Judge, ‘and burn up His ene- 
mies round about.’ $f 


(occurs once again at Jude 15) τεϑεικώς, (comp. τετήρηκεν and πρόκεινται of Jude 
6 and 7.) 

* τὸν ὅμοιον τούτοις (See p. 989, note 3) τρόπον ἐκπορνεύσασαι καὶ ἀπελϑοῦσαι 
κτλ. See the Revision. 

+ Gene lor: p2a4es ΒΕ ΤΙ τ 0... 185130) > 33): 60.2 15 kon Βα νε 20 -ἰοὲ 

fu GentOhs 25: ΠΞ, 0,95»: Sam 2714; OORT 2Ay 181 AG) : 158. ΠΑ]: ἈΠ 1; 
Mark 9): 43, etc. ; Heb. 12': 29; Rev. τὸ : 3. 

§ See the passages last cited. || Ez. 16 : 53, 55. 

** Is 13: 19, 20; Jer. 50: 39,40; Zeph. 2:9, (Sept. εἰς Tov aidva.) 

it Chrysostom, viii. Hom. on 1 Thess. : πάντα ἄκαρπα, πάντα ἄγονα, πάντα τῆς 
προλαβούσης ὀργῆς εἰκόνες, τῆς μελλούσης τεκμήρια. Comp. 3 Macc.2:5: Σὺ 
τοὺς... Σοδομίτας... κατέλούσης τεκμήρια.---Φλεξας, παράδειγμα τοῖς ἐπινενομένοις 
καταστήσας. 


ft Ps. 97:3; 50:3. 


454 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


But now behold once more the goodness and faithfulness 
of God, ‘in wrath remembering mercy.’* Somewhat closely 
rendered, the next two verses might be read thus: ‘Azd de- 
livered righteous + Lot, worn down ὁ with the filthy behavior ὃ 
of the lawless: || (for in seeing and hearing did the righteous 
man, Awelling among them, day after day torment his righteous 
soul with their unlawful deeds, )** 

To what extent, if at all, the nephew of Abraham was 
blameworthy in prolonging his stay for years in a wicked 
region, to which he had, indeed, been at first attracted by the 
mere prospect of secular advantage, we have no means of 
judging. But, whatever may have been his fault, he suffered 
for it grievously. It is certain that Lot was really a good 
man, who, beset on all hands by the most flagrant abomina- 
tions, and without the sympathy or support of neighbors or 
kindred like-minded with himself, maintained faith in God, 
and led a sober and righteous life. Nor was his sense of the 
evil around him dulled, as might well have been supposed, by 
long familiarity with it. On this point the language before 
us is singularly emphatic. It speaks of him as ‘ worn down, 
wearied out, oppressed in spirit, by the licentiousness of a 
population which had burst asunder and openly cast aside all 
restraints of the Divine law, of nature, and of conscience. He 
‘beheld the transgressors, and was grieved.’ 7 Nor was his 
resistance to the general corruption wholly passive. He did 
not withdraw from the society of men, and only weep for 


* ΠᾺΡ; 3 22: 2 

{ So our version renders δέκαιος (the word employed by the LXX,. throughout 
Gen, 18 : 23-28) twice in v. 8, and thirty-eight times elsewhere. The very need- 
less variation in this context began with Tyndale. 

1 kararovotuevov—once again at Acts 7 : 24, (oppressed. ) 

§ ἐν ἀσελγείᾳ (wantonness, lasciviousness, as inv. 2 and I Pet. 4 : 3) ἀναστροφῆς, 
(see p. 152.) 

|| d@3éouwv—occurs only here and 3 : 17, and in neither place is there any rea- 
son for concealing its strict meaning. Rather, there is in the context special rea- 
son for retaining it. 

** βλέμματι γὰρ καὶ ἀκοῇ (erroneously connected with δίκαιος by the Vulgate, 
Erasmus, and others) ὁ δίκαιος, éy-(Sin. ἐν-)-κατοικῶν ἐν αὐτοῖς, ἡμέραν ἐξ ἡμέρας 
ψυχὴν δικαίαν ἀνόμοις ἔργοις ἐβασάνιζεν. Comp. the ἐτάραξεν ἑαυτόν of John 
11:52. 

tt Ps. 119 : 53, 139, 158. 


Lecture X.—Chapter 2 : 4-9. 455 


them in secret places. Without trusting to the Jewish tradi- 
tion that Lot held the office of a judge in Sodom, we infer 
from our text that he was in the habit of going freely abroad 
in the city, and that, while thus voluntarily subjecting himself 
to unceasing daily torture from all that he there saw and 
heard, he kept up a perpetual though unavailing protest, by 
word as well as by his own purer walk and conversation, 
against the foul, blasphemous speeches and ‘ wnlawful deeds.’ 

And so, when the day of crisis came at last, his fidelity also 
had its reward. ‘The Lord, being merciful unto him,’ sent 
down His angels, and by their hands ‘ delivered righteous Lot. 
Nor, until ‘Lot entered into Zoar, could the fiery judgment 


descend.* 


At the oth verse we have the conclusion to be drawn from 
all that has been said. ‘That conclusion is first stated in gen- 
eral terms, and then the 1oth verse applies it to the case in 
hand. 

If ‘angels that excel in strength,’ the antediluvian world 
with its races of ‘giants’ and ‘ mighty men—men of renown,’ 
and the flourishing cities of the plain that was as ‘the garden 
of the Lord’ {—if, in a word, all history shows that offending 
creatures of.every name and degree, no matter how power- 
ful, numerous, or seemingly prosperous, have hitherto per- 
ished helplessly and utterly in the wrath of God, while those, 
on the other hand, whose ways have pleased Him, have been 
. safe in the time of its most appalling manifestation—then it 
ciearly follows, as something that may be relied on with all con- 
fidence, that ‘ the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of 
temptation,§ but the unrighteous to reserve under punishment || 


* Gen. 19 : 16, 23-25. 

+ I see not the least ground, therefore, for the opinion of Pareus, which has 
been revived by Rosenmiiller, Winer, De Wette, and others, that the construc- 
tion with which the writer started at v. 4 is left incomplete, having broken 
down in consequence of the accumulation of clauses. 

PES τοῦτ: 20, Gene ΟἿΣ ΤΣ TO: 

§ πειρασμοῦ, (Sin.* πειρασμῶν.) This word occurs seventeen times in the sin- 
gular, and only in this instance appears in our version as a plural. What may 
have been at first merely an error of the press has kept its place in all subse- 
quent editions that I have looked into. 

|| ἀδίκους δὲ (Sin.? adds πεφυλακισμένους) .. . κολαζομένους τηρεῖν. 


456 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


wnto the day of judgment ,;’ and if He ‘knoweth how’ to do 
these two things, it may be assumed for certain that He w2// 
do both.* 

You will observe that where our English version speaks of 
the unjust being ‘reserved unto the day of judgment Zo be 
punished, + as if their punishment would not begin till then, 
I understand the Apostle to speak of them as being now 
under punishment. There can be no doubt that the latter 
idea is the one naturally suggested by the original, nor is 
there any necessity for forcing the other into it. The sense 
yielded by a strict adherence to the present time accords with 
the representations of the preceding verses, and of the paral- 
lel verses of Jude, which alike set forth a preliminary and 
continuous punishment of the wicked, besides that which 
shall be awarded to them at the last day. Indeed, nothing 
admits of easier proof than that the doctrine of an interme- 
diate state, both of blessedness and of suffering, before the 
resurrection and final judgment, is one every way reasonable 
and scriptural. 


Among the many lessons suggested by the passage we have 
been considering, I shall here note only the following : 

1. The sentimental view of the character of God, as ‘a God 
all mercy, is as false to Scripture as it is repugnant to the 
instincts of our nature, and at variance with universal experi- 
ence. All three concur in ‘saying to the righteous, that it 
shall be well with him: for they shall eat the fruit of their 


* Bengel: ‘Vovit, et meminit... De vol/untate Dei, dubium non est.’ 

t Ever since the Vulgate, crawciandos versions and commentaries have generally 
concurred in making κολαζομένους---κολασϑησομένους -- αὐ exegetical license, 
which Bengel’s suggestion, ‘futurum: et tamen prasens, quia poena certa et 
imminens, v. 3,’ is not sufficient to warrant. This use of the present participle 
is with reason denied by Winer, whose own explanation, however, which finds 
the idea of futurity in the τηρεῖν and then makes κολαζομένους τηρεϊν-εετηρξι (ὥστε) 
κολάζειν (κολάζεσϑαι) is still more unsatisfactory.—In support of the above inter- 
pretation may be cited the Syriac (though it is given, at least unnecessarily, in the 
sense of the Vulgate by the Latin version, Murdock, and Bloomfield, (who also 
errs in quoting here from ‘the Pesch. Syr.,’? which does not contain this Epistle,) 
Beza, the Dutch margin and note, Cocceius, Hammond, Huther, Wordsworth, 
Wiesinger. 

t See Calvin on v. 4. 








Lecture X.—Chapter 2: 4-9. 48 


doings. Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for 
the reward of his hands shall be given him. And the echo 
of that voice in its twofold utterance shall resound for ever. 

2. There are very many questions which may be started in 
regard to the doctrines and the prophecies of the Bible, to 
which our best and sufficient answer is, ‘the Lord knoweth 
how. 

3. The heinousness of the guilt of heretical schism, and its 
attendant immoralities, in the Church of God may be learned 
from the class of offences and punishments that are employed 
to illustrate its character and doom. The angelic pride, the 
antediluvian violence and corruption and unholy mixture of 
good and evil, the Sodomite licentiousness and security in sin, 
while environed by the hidden fires of wrath, all of them, 
alas! abound this day in Christendom. Now remember the 
solemn saying of Christ, ‘But whoso shall offend one of 
these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him 
that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he 
were drowned in the depth of the sea,’ * and must we not 
tremble to think of what shall be the end of these things? 

4. Let us maintain a steadfast testimony for whatever is: 
good and true, and not suffer ourselves, on the one hand, to 
be disconcerted by the charge of singularity, nor, on the, 
other hand, to take encouragement from the multitude 
around us in doing evil. Noah in all the wide world and Lot 
in Sodom were both singular men. But in that precisely lay 
their honor and their safety. ‘It is better,’ says one, ‘to be 
inthe ark with a few, than to be drowned with the rest for 
company.’ + 

5. As God has many arrows in His quiver for the destruc- 
tion of His enemies, so likewise innumerable methods for the 
deliverance of His children. With every temptation He ‘also 
makes a way to escape, that they may be able to bear it. ἢ 

6. And, finally, let us not forget that our blessed Lord 
. Himself again and again forewarned His disciples of a fatal 
resemblance between the days of Noah and of Lotand the clos- 
ing period of this dispensation—a resemblance that shall hold 


* Matt. 18: 6. t Philip Henry. ἘΠΊΕ ταν 3° 3) 13); 1 Corton.) ts. 


458 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


good in respect both of the wide-spread ungodliness and un- 
righteousness of men, and the suddenness and terribleness of 
the Divine vengeance. ‘As it was in the days of Noah, so 
shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, 
they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, 
until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood 
came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the 
days of Lot ; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, 
they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went 
out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and 
destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when 
the Son of man is revealed.’ * 


* Luke 17 : 26-30; Matt. 24 : 37-39. 


_— ΝΣ 


EPCTURE At 


2 PETER 2: 10-16. 


‘Burt chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and 
despise government. Presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid 
to speak evil of dignities. Whereas angels, which are greater in power and 
might, bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord. But these, as 
natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things 
that they understand not ; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption ; and 
shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot 
in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their 
own deceivings while they feast with you ; having eyes full of adultery, and that 
cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised 
with covetous practices ; cursed children: which have forsaken the right way, 
and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the 
wages of unrighteousness ; but was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass 
speaking*with man’s voice forbad the madness of the prophet.’ 


FRoM various notable instances of swift and exact retribu- 
tion in God’s past dealings both with angels and men, the 

Apostle had inferred as part of his general conclusion, that 
‘the Lord knoweth how... to reserve the unrighteous 
under punishment unto the day of judgment.’ This con- 
clusion, so amply sustained by the history of the universe, 
is now hurled as a wreathed thunderbolt directly at the false 
teachers, whose appearance had been foretold in the first verse, 
and whose portrait is completed to full length in the remain- 
der of the chapter. 

In that portrait we may say that there are four features 
especially prominent: the denial of Christ, sensuality, greed, 
and a profane, arrogant lawlessness in speech and act ; while 
throughout the whole the very darkest colors are used, and 


460 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


the horror of the canvas is lighted only by the intermingling 
fires of wrath. 

Much account has sometimes been made of the fact that 
the parties described are spoken of no longer in the future 
tense, but as if then present. This, however, admits of a very 
simple explanation. To some extent, no doubt, they really 
were so; but not less so, to the writer’s spiritual vision, was 
the same evil as afterwards developed into more appallng 
proportions. In regard, therefore, to that also he employs 
what is called the prophetic present.* 


‘But chiefly those’—whatever other transgressors may dream 
of baffling the resources of the Divine justice, let not these 
delude themselves with the hope of escape; rather on them 
shall the stroke of vengeance descend the most heavily— 
‘who, calling themselves not only members but teachers of 
that Church of God, whose glorious characteristic it is that, 
living in the Spirit, she also walks in the Spirit,f do never- 
theless openly belie their profession by ‘ walking after the 
fiesh’—following as their only guide t their old, unrenewed 
nature ; and that in its lowest and basest instincts—‘ zz zhe 
lust of uncleanness. § To this their impurity reference had 
already been made in verse 2; || but here it is added 

‘ And despise government, or, as in the margin, domznion, or 
better still, Zordship.** They ‘walk after the flesh in the lust 
of uncleanness, and despise lordship’ The two things, licen- 
tiousness and insubordination, are in like manner combined 
by Jude, when he speaks of ‘ these dreamers’ as ‘defiling the 
flesh and rejecting lordship. 17 But what lordship is meant? 


* Nothing can well be more absurd than De Wette’s theory on this point. 
Some unknown writer of the post-apostolic age thinks it worth while to concoct 
an imitation of Jude’s Epistle, and father it on the Apostle Peter. The better to Ὁ 
disguise the imposture he, of course, sets out to turn Jude’s presents into futures ; 
but by the time he reaches the 1oth verse he forgets himself, and, sliding back 
into present tenses, shows that he is, one would say, quite as much fool as knave ! 
Comp. p. 485, note *. 

t Gal. 5 : 25, 

{ ὀπίσω... πορευομένους. Calvin: ‘pro summo duce habent.’ 

§ (Sin.? ἐπιϑυμίαις) zracuot—only here in the New Testament. 

|| Wiclif: ordschyringe. According to the better reading; see p. 442. 

** κυριότητος. tt κυριότητα δὲ ἀϑετοῦσι. 

\ 


Lecture XI—Chapter 2 : 10-16. 461 


To this question the most various and discordant answers 
have been given, as for example, that the expression stands 
here for the devil,* or angels,f or civil magistracy,t or 
Christ,§ or the Godhead,|| or for God and Christ and the holy 
angels.** For myself, I see no objection to taking the word 
in alarge sense as including all authority, Divine and human,ft 
but with a special reference to Christ, the Supreme Lord— 
‘the Head of all principality and power’ t{—whom the false 
teachers, we were told in the first verse, should deny. Accord- 
ingly, now that the writer enters on a more elaborate and 
detailed exposition of their character, it is nothing more than 
might have been expected, that he should revert to that fun- 
damental and fatal sin. So far from reverencing, loving, and 
obeying, they ‘ despise lordship’—even Christ’s own lordship, 
‘as well as all reflected, delegated authority in Christ’s minis- 
ters of every kind. Scorning restraint, they ‘break His 
bands asunder, and cast away His cords from them.’ Their 
most cherished feeling is, ‘Who is Lord over us δ᾽ §§ 

It is this point of blasphemous audacity that is still insisted 
on in what immediately follows: ‘ Presumptuous are they, 
self-willed ; they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities, or, 
if we omit what our translators have supplied, and keep close 
to the original—Daring men, self-willed—perhaps as if we 
should say, self-willed bravoes—they tremble not while blas- 
pheming, or railing at, glories.|\\|| And here we meet with 
very much the same diversity of opinion as to what we are to 
understand by dzgnzties or glories, as in the previous case of go- 
vernment or lordship ; some*** taking it to mean earthly rulers 
and magistrates ; others, ff the bad angels ; others, t+ the 


* Bengel, Besser. This notion rests on no better foundation than the mistake 
of making the interpretation of Peter depend on the interpretation—and that, I 
believe, an erroneous interpretation—of Jude 8, 9. 


+ De Wette, etc. t Calvin, Bloomfield, Clarke, Barnes, etc. 
§ Wiesinger. || Huther. ** Dietlein. 
Tt Stier, Fronmiiller. Pe Coltr2% 10: SSuPsr2is03 ἢ, ΤΙ ΤΑ: 


|| || τολμηταὶ, (in the New Testament only here.) αὐϑάδεις, δόξας οὐ τρέμουσι βλασ- 
φημοῦντες. According to the lexicons and the punctuation of most editions, τολ- 
μηταῖ is used as a substantive qualified by aii}. Comp. ἐτόλμησε of Jude o. 
*** See note t above. {ΠῚ Bengel, Besser, Wiesinger. See note * above. 

ttt De Wette, Fronmiiller, etc. 


462 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


good angels ; and others still, the rays of the Divine glory as 
seen, for example, in angels,* and also in Christ. | One recent 
commentator ¢ even goes so far as to enumerate among these 
dignities or glories the Godhead, the Word, the Holy Ghost, 
the resurrection, the angels, earthly dignities, the world ; and 
he points out how each and all of these were dishonored in 
the teaching of the early heretics. I suppose it to be im- 
possible to say with any degree of certainty which, or how 
many, of the ideas thus suggested were in the mind of our 
Apostle. But we shall scarcely err if at any rate we include 
the glories which he himself had spoken of in the first chapter, 
(verse 17,) to wit, ‘the most excellent glory’ of the Father, 
and the glory of the Son, together with ‘the glories’ foretold 
by prophets as to follow the sufferings of the Messiah. (1 Pe- 
ter, 1.314.) 

Against every thing of the kind ‘ they speak loftily. They 
set their mouth against the heavens, and their tongue walketh 
through the earth.’ Their inward contempt fer lordship breaks 
out in open blasphemies against glories. The very indefinite- 
ness of the expressions seems to show that the writer meant 
both to be taken quite generally ; just as Paul describes the 
Man of sin—and the same spirit rules in these false teachers 
—as ‘opposing and exalting himself above all that is called 
God, or that is worshipped.’ Or as John saw the Beast from 
the sea ‘speaking great things and blasphemies—opening 
his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name, 
and His tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. § The 
same thing these men do, and that without trembling—in 
tones of reckless defiance or frivolous unconcern. 

In this view of the roth verse there would doubtless have 
been a much more general concurrence of expositors but for 
a difficulty growing out of what immediately follows : ‘ Whereas 
angels, who are greater in strength and power, bring not against 
them before the Lord a railing judgment. || 


* Huther. + Dietlein. ἢ Wordsworth. 

ΕΟ 5. τ Spee mess. 2 2 as Rey. 13: 5, Ὁ. 

|| ὅπου ἄγγελοι ἰσχυύϊ καὶ δυνάμει (see Revision of 2 Thess. 1 : 9, note 9 and of 
Rev. 7 : 12, note 0) μεΐζονες ὄντες, ob φέρουσι κατ᾽ αὐτῶν παρὰ Κυρίω βλάσφημον 
κρίσιν, (rendered judgment in our version forty-one times out of forty-eight ; never 





Lecture XI—Chapter 2 : 10-16. 463 


Evidently enough the shameless audacity of the false teach- 
ers is here contrasted with the reserve and humility of angels 
in presence of ‘the Lord the Judge.’* ‘But who are the par- 
ties against whom even the angels in such circumstances re- 
frain from bringing railing judgment? Are they, then, the 
very same ‘glories’ at which the false teachers rail? And is 
it not superfluous formally to assure us that angels are not 
chargeable with the foul offence of railing at what is ‘ glorious 
in holiness’ "7 

Now it is to escape from this dilemma that recourse has so 
frequently been had to the parallel passage of Jude, who, after 
saying that his ‘dreamers defile the flesh, reject lordship, and 
speak evil of glories,’ continues thus: ‘Yet Michael the 
archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about 
the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing ac- 
cusation,’ or judgment,§ ‘but said: The Lord rebuke thee.’ 
From this it has been very commonly, but, as I think, far too 
hastily, inferred that the general statement in our text was 
suggested by the same mysterious transaction, and that the 
‘elories’ of both Peter and Jude, if not also the ‘lordship,’ 

include, if they do not exclusively denote, the fallen spirits. 

- Τὴ this conclusion, which is probably that suggested by the 
reading mentioned in our English margin, against themselves, 
I am unable to acquiesce with any feeling of satisfaction or 
confidence. It is too far-fetched, and makes the intelligible- 
ness of Peter dependent on Jude. Moreover, the utmost that 
even poetry has ever conceived of Satan as he was just after 
his expulsion from the presence of God, is that 


§ his form had yet not lost 
All her original brightness, nor appeared 
Less than Archangel ruined, and th’ excess 
Of glory obscured.’ || 





But it is not at all in the style of Scripture to speak of these 
unclean spirits of darkness simply as ‘glories. Nor would 


as here except in the parallel Jude 9.) Lachmann and Tischendorf omit the 
words παρὰ Κυριῳ. 

* Judg. 11 : 27. t Ex. 15 εἰς. t δόξας. § κρίσιν. 

|| Milton, Par. Lost, i. 591-594. 


464 . Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


any one have imagined, but for the supposed necessity of the 
case, and the help brought in from Jude, that in our text there 
was the slightest reference whatever to devils.* Nor again do 
I know of any heretical sect in church history that made it 
its business to blaspheme devils. - The heathen worshipped 
them, and the tendency of the Gnostic theology was rather 
to exalt them into a rivalry with the Supreme God. 

Various other explanations have been proposed, as that 
angels do not bring a railing judgment against earthly rulers, 
however wicked, who are then supposed to be meant in the 
roth verse; or that angels, the bad angels, mentioned just 
before: at the 4th verse, are not able with their superior . 
strength to bear God’s judgment against themselves for their 
blasphemies ; ¢ or, and this I regard as on the whole the 
easiest and least objectionable solution, that, while these 
miserable and weak, helpless sinners rail at all that is high- 
est and holiest in the universe, angels, who so far excel them § 
in strength and power, as well as in spiritual excellence, ab- 
stain before the Lord, to whom judgment belongeth, from all 
severity of censure even against them. || As if it were said: 
What fact could better illustrate the glaring contrast between 
the modesty of angels and the profane presumption of these 
wicked men? 

This contrast is continued into the 12th verse, where also 
their ignorance, sensuality, and utter ruin again appear in 
strong relief: ‘ But these,** as natural brute beasts, made to be 
taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they under- 


* Mayerhoff and De Wette, holding to that reference, account for what they, 
less strangely than offensively, call the unintelligible and absurd way in which 
our text makes it, by supposing that the person who forged this epistle felt 
ashamed to use openly the apocryphal Book of Enoch, from which they take it 
for granted that Jude got the story of Michael and Satan! 

+ Calvin, Beza, etc. 

{ Fronmiiller—making κατ᾽ aitév=xaW’ ἑαυτῶν (so the Vulgate, Luther, Eras- 
mus, etc.) and βλάσφημον Kpiocv—BAacdnuiac κρίσιν, (a much more questionable 
liberty.) 

§ Besser and Wiesinger : excel the bad angels. Wuther thinks that the superior 
angels are meant, according to the parallelism of Jude 9. 

This reference of αὐτῶν is preferred by Wordsworth. All that De Wette 
has to object to itis the parallelism and—its senselessness ! 
** Sin, has αὐτοί, for οὗτοι. 





Lecture XT—Chapter 2 : 10-16. 465. 


stand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption: 
and shall receive the reward of unrighteousness ;’ or, adopting 
the reading of the later critics,* we might give the verse 
thus: ‘ But these, as brute’ or irrational + beasts, born natural- 
ly for capture and destruction,t railing§ in|| things that they 
_ understand not, shall even perish in their own corruption, and 
so receive** the wages 17 of unrighteousness. In our version 
the parallel passage of Jude (10) stands thus: ‘But these 
speak evil of those things which they know not: but what 
they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they 
corrupt themselves.’ 

What pictures are these of men, children of ‘the Father of 
spirits, ἐξ partakers of the Divine image, formed for an ever- 
lasting progress in knowledge, holiness and joy, and for king- 
ly rule over all the other works of God—yea, of men redeemed 
from the darkness and alienation of nature, cleansed from 
their old sins, bearing in their own persons the seal of the 
covenant, administering that seal to others, called themselves, 
and professing to lead others, to the peace, perfection, and 
glory of eternity! They ‘were once enlightened, and have 
tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the 
Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the 
powers of the world to come.’ But all these their privileges, 
endowments, and pretensions have only rendered them capa- 
ble of a more aggravated guilt, and fitted them for a deeper 
damnation. Claiming to inherit seats in the kingdom of 
heaven higher and brighter than those of angels, they have 
even dehumanized themselves, have lost ‘the sanctity of rea- 


* Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford, Wordsworth: γεγεννημένα (Sin, γεγενημ-) 
φυσικὰ... καὶ φϑαρήσομται, (Sin. A, B, C.) 

+ ἄλογα. But see Milton’s use of the word ὀχ in Par. Lost, vii. 507. 

t εἰς ἄλωσιν καὶ φϑοράν. 

ὃ βλασφημοῦντες---5 in vv. 10, 11, and should be similarly rendered. Here 
the participial construction should be retained, as the point of comparison with 
the beasts is not the railing. Sin. ἀγνοδῦντες βλασφημοῦσιν. 

|| ἐν. 

** xoucovuevoc—future in form as well as in sense—intimates that this clause, 
instead of announcing an additional punishment, is merely an explanatory appen- 
dage of the preceding finite verb.—For this word, Sin.’ and B have ἀδικούμενοι. 

tt μισϑόν as in v. 15. Hit JEl@)), 373 Op 


466 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


son, and sunk down to the level, and far, far below the level, 
of ‘the beasts that perish,’ indeed, but were born for that 
very destiny. ‘Razling in things that they understand not’— 
in cases, that is, where their ignorance unfits them for any 
thing else but to rail, and helps them in that, like dogs bay- 
ing the moon—they shall die as the dog dieth, and ‘perish zu 
their own corruption. For here again, as in v. I, they are de- 
scribed as self-destroyed. They shall ‘fall into their own 
nets,’ and there shall they ‘stumble, and fall, and be broken, 
and be snared, and be taken.’ The corruption, which they 
lived to spread around them, shall at last strikesinwardly, 
and work out its own consummation ἢ in their utter and eternal 
undoing. Thus shall ‘the reward of their hands be given 
them.’ They shall receive and bear away that prizef of 
shame and woe, ‘ the wages of unrighteousness’ —‘the recom- 
pense of their error which is meet.’ ἢ 


This fresh denunciation of vengeance is followed by a still 
further exposure of the corruption that provokes and necessi- 
tates it. And here we have a series, or rather torrent, of 
short exclamatory clauses, which have been variously punc- 
tuated and construed by editors and commentators. On 
these points, I venture to think, the writer himself did not 
take half so much pains as his critics. He looks on at the 
appalling development of evil within the Church, and, stirred 
with holy indignation, he breaks forth again in a tone of im- 
petuous invective that makes little account of symmetrical 
arrangement, and which was, we can well believe, character- 
istic of our Apostle. As I am disposed to read the passage, 
after the word wnrighteousness we have the beginning of a 
new sentence, which, running through the accumulation of 
dependent particulars in the 13th and 14th verses, comes toa 
positive statement only in the 15th, and ends with the 16th, 
somewhat in this way: 


* Wiesinger refers αὑτῶν (αὐτῶν) to ζῶα. But this is a great ‘mistake, and 
would seriously impair the force of the passage. 

t The verb (κομίζομας) is the same that occurs ini Pet.1:9and5:4. See 
p. 42, note *, ; 

ἐ ἘΠ: δ᾽: 4,53 Ps. 49/212 Σ 141: 10; Is. 8155 9598; Rom vom 





Lecture XI—Chapter 2 : 10-16. 467 


‘ Accounting it pleasure to revel in the day-time, spots and 
blemishes, revelling in their own deceits, while banqueting with 
you, having eyes full of adultery’—or rather, as in the margin, 
of an adulteress— and ceasing not from sin, alluring unstable 
souls, having a heart exercised in covetousness, children of a 
curse, forsaking the right way, they went astray, having fol- 
lowed the way of Balaam, etc.* 

On all this a few explanatory hints may suffice. 

To ‘revel in the day-time’ was ever esteemed a mark of 
shameless profligacy. ‘They that be drunken,’ says Paul, ‘are 
drunken in the night.’ And hence Peter himself argued the 
great unlikelihood of his brethren on the day of Pentecost 
being under any such influence, ‘seeing it was but the third 
hour of the day.’ Not a few, indeed, of the best interpre- 
ters{ understand the clause differently, ‘ Accounting it plea- 
sure to revel for a day’—for a brief season, the short day of 
life. But to find ‘the pleasures of sin’§ pleasurable, so long 
as they last, is not such a proof of a reprobate mind as that 
furnished by our common version. Nor is the sense given 
by many others,|| ‘Accounting it a pleasure to revel daily,’ 
on any ground to be preferred. 

Of these men it is further said that they are ‘ spots and 
blemishes’ in the communion of the faithful—on that Body of 
Christ which He is forming for Himself, and in His own like- 
ness, to be holy as He is holy, the unspotted and unblemished 
Lamb of God ;** ‘ sporting themselves’—luxuriating, revelling, 
‘tn their own decetts, while banqueting with you. With this 
it is interesting to compare Jude 12, ‘These are spots in your 
feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves 


* Ἡδονὴν ἡγούμενοι τὴν ἐν ἡμέρᾳ τρυφὴν, σπῖλοι καὶ μῶμοι, (in the New Testa- 
ment only here,) ἐντρυφῶντες ἐν ταῖς ἀπάταις αὑτῶν, συνευωχούμενοι ὑμῖν, ὀφϑαλ- 
μοὺς ἔχοντες μεστοὺς μοιχαλίδος, καὶ ἀκαταπαύστους ἁμαρτίας, (ϑ1η.---τίαις.) δελεώ- 
ζοντες (as in v. 18) ψυχὰς ἀστηρίκτους, καρδίαν γεγυμνασμένην πλεονεξίας (now re- 
ceived, after Sin., etc., instead of πλεονεξίαις) ἔοχντες, κατάρας τέκνα, καταλιπόν- 
τες (Sin, καταλείποντες) τὴν (cancelled by all recent editors, after Sin., etc.) 
εὐϑεῖαν ὁδὸν, ἐπλανήϑησαν, ἐξακολουϑήσαντες τῇ ὁδῷ τοῦ Βαλαάμ κτλ. 

7 1 Thess.5 :7; Acts 2: 15. 1 From the Vulgate to Wiesinger. 

ὃ Heb. 11 : 25. 

|| CEcumenius, Beza, Dutch and Italian versions, Pott, Wahl, etc. 

** Comp. I Pet. 1 : 19, duvod ἀμώμου καὶ ἀσπίλου. 


468 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


without fear ;’ where the verbal variations are in the original 


even more striking and curious than is the resemblance. 


Thus, the word for spots in Jude, though in sound very like 


the one in Peter,* differs from it essentially in meaning. It 
does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament, but outside 
of the New Testament it invariably means a rock: ‘These are 
rocks in your love-feasts ;’ nor is it really necessary to suppose 
that Jude was either ignorant of, or purposely violated this, 
so far at least as it can now be traced, uniform usage. And 
such a conjecture becomes still less plausible when we find in 
the same sentence another remarkable instance of what is 
called word-play. Jude’s expression which we translate feasts 
of charity very closely resembles that of Peter for deceits ;F 
and so here again a more exact agreement between the two wri- 
ters has often been forced by conforming, not in this case Jude 
to Peter, but Peter to Jude.{ There is, however, not the least 
call for any critical violence. Our Apostle may very well be 
understood as referring, not, at any rate not exclusively, to 
ecclesiastical feasts, such as the Lord’s Supper and the love- 
feast, but rather to domestic and social entertainments. Even 
then, he says, ‘while banqueting with you, when kindly feel- 
ings should be in full flow, and you are least on your guard, 
they ‘revel in their decetts’ As it is by deceit that they have 
made their way into your confidence and to your table, so 
they abuse the opportunity which your confidence thus allows 
them, for the ends of their lust and avarice. 

‘Having eyes full of an adulteress§ and ceasing not\| from 
sin’—their whole power and sphere of vision occupied with 
some object of impure desire—fleshly lust filling up and look- 


* σπῖλοι---σπιλάδες. 

+ ἀπάταις---ἀγάπαις. 

ὁ Lachmann here edits ἀγάπαις, (A** B, Vulgate, Syriac, etc.) Alford too 
‘has the strongest suspicion that dy. is the original reading.’ But then αὑτῶν 
also must have been substituted for ὑμῶν. 

§ powyadidoc—as in Rom. 7 : 3 and James 4:4. The reading μοιχαλίας (Sin- 
A and some cursive MSS.) may have been followed by the Vulgate, adulterii.— 
CEcumenius: οὐδὲν ἀλλο βλέπουσιν ἢ μοιχαλίδας. Aretius: ‘Habitat enim 
Venus in oculis et toto vultu.’ 

|| ἀκαταπαύστους. Some cursive MSS. have ἀκαταπαύστου, (Vulgate, z7cessa- 
bilis delicti.) Lachmann edits ἀκαταπάστους, (A, B.) 





Lecture XI—Chapter 2 : 10-16. 469 


ing forth from these windows of the soul,* ever gleaming with 
unholy fire, ‘and ceasing not from sin, from sinning them- 
selves, (Matt. 5 : 28,) and tempting others to sin. . 

In this way, and as the whole aim and tendency of their 
life and teaching, these men ‘allure unstable souls’ Souls 
that have been ‘ rooted and grounded’ in the faith and love of 
Christ Jesus our Lord will scarcely be ensnared by their 
seductive arts ; whereas souls that have not thus been ‘ estab- 
lished with grace,’ fall an easy prey to the fowler.f 

‘ Having a heart exercised’—practised, trained, like the com- 
petitors at the public games—‘ 221 covetousness’—another hate- 
ful feature, sufficiently prominent in their character to be 
included in the first general sketch at the beginning of the 
chapter, (v. 3.) And here apparently it is the abominable 
combination of a dissolute licentiousness with selfish, insati- 
able greed, that extorts from the Apostle the cry: cursed chil- 
dren, or children of a curse /* men who, so to speak, are what 
they are through the curse of God, belonging to it, subject to 
it, carrying it in their features, heirs of it—besides being 
themselves the curse of the Christian community that is de- 
filed by their presence. 

All which presently reminds the writer of that remarkable 
forerunner of false prophets and false teachers and adver- 
saries of the Church, the Simon Magus of the Old Testament, 
Balaam, the destroyer of the people, as his name imports,§ 
answering in that respect to the apocalyptic designation of 
Nicolaitans, which was assumed, either in John’s days or soon 
after, by one of the foulest Gnostic sects:|| ‘Horsaking the 
vight, or straight,** ‘way’ of Christian truth and holiness on 
which they professedly entered, and in which for a time they 
seemed to walk, ‘¢hey followed the way of Balaam the son of 
Losor, or Beor, as the name is givenin Numb. 22:5. For 


* 2 Kings 9 : 30. ἼΣΗ 17; ΘΟΙ͂ΣΣ 7; ΠΕΡΙ. : Os 
} Comp. Job 41 : 34; Eph. 2: 2, 3; 2 Thess. 2: 3. 
§ If composed, according to the most probable account of it, of 955 and py, 
|| From Νικόλαος, as if=vixdy τὸν λαόν. 
** εὐϑεῖαν---ἃ5 in Acts 13 : 10. 


470 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


itis the same name, the New Testament form of it represent- 
ing merely, it is said, a difference of pronunciation.* 

Now, the story of Balaam presents a very similar combina- 
tion of impurity, low ambition, and Divine rebuke and retri- 
bution. Looked up to as a prophet by those among whom he 
dwelt, he set himself, under the influence of the most sordid 
motives, to tempt the people of God into sin—the kindred 
sins of idolatry and uncleanness—and thereby led them into 
trouble, and brought ruin on himself. The Apostle, having 
just spoken of the covetousness of the false teachers, points 
especially to that same trait in the character of Balaam, ‘ who 
loved the wages of unrighteousness, and for the sake of them 
suppressed his own better convictions, and as it were forced 
God to let him follow, at least to some extent, the crooked 
way of his own heart. 

Not, however, without continued warning and resistance: 
‘but was rebuked for his iniquity, or had a reproof of his own 
transgression ; ὁ he who passed among his people as an oracle 
of heaven, and their reprover and guide. And how wondrous- 
ly was that reproof adapted to the conviction and humiliation 
of a man who seems to have been favored with frequent direct 
communications from the living and true God! ‘A dumdé ass,§ 
having, on that one occasion ‘ sfoken|| with man’s votce, for- 
bade’—restrained, hindered— the madness** of the prophet, as 
he rushed on the naked though unseen sword of the Angel. 
Says Calvin: ‘It was a horrible judgment of God, that the 
Angel revealed himself to an ass sooner than to the prophet ; 
that an ass, perceiving God opposed, durst not advance far- 
ther, but rather recoiled, when the prophet, under the blind 


* Of the » in 45 y—a Chaldaic peculiarity. In our text Tischendorf gives 
βεώρ as the reading of Sin. 

t+ Comp. Numb. 22 : 7, 17 sqq.; 25 : 1-9; 31:8; Deut. 23:4; Neh. 13 : 2; 
AGIs 520 REV. 2: 12. 10. 

1 ἔλεγξιν δὲ ἔσχεν ἰδίας παρανομίας, (in the New Testament only here.) 

§ ὑποζύγιον, properly ax animal under the yoke, a beast of burden, is of frequent 
occurrence in the Septuagint, (for example, Ex. 22:9, 10, etc.) for “479M, 


From the common use of the ass in Palestine, ὑποζ. seems to have acquired the 
force of a specific designation. 

|| ¢0eySauevov.—Sin.' omits ἐν before ἀνθρώπου φωνῇ. 
** ἐκώλυσε THY τ. 7. Tapagpoviay, (found only here.) 





- 


Lecture XI—Chapter 2 : 10-16. 471 


impulse of his avarice, and in the face of a clear Divine pro- 
hibition, was rushing on. For the final answer which he 
received, that he might go, was less a permission than a mark 
of the Divine displeasure. Finally, it was to his extreme dis- 
honor that the mouth of the ass was opened, so that she 
might be the teacher of the man who had been unwilling to 
submit himself to the authority of God. By this prodigy, 
moreover, the Lord would show what a monstrous thing it is, 
to change the truth into a lie.’ ἢ 

Neither Calvin nor Peter, therefore, it appears, was aware 
of the difficulties and absurdities that our modern philoso- 
phical scepticism finds in the story of Balaam and his ass. 
In other words, it never even occurred to them, that what an 
ass could not do of itself it was equally impossible for God to 
enable it todo. The childish simplicity of faith had not yet 
come to understand, that the Almighty was now, and had 
been from the beginning, helplessly subject to the laws of His 
own making, and that, like some king of old Egypt, He lies 
bound immovably hand and foot within the walls of the uni- 
verse which He Himself reared. The sad, conceited nonsense 
on the subject of miracles that nowadays goes by the name 
of science, really amounts to just that, and to nothing more. 

To this one historical illustration of the wickedness and 
folly of the false teachers Jude, you will find, adds two others: 
‘Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and 
ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished 
in the gainsaying of Korah.’ 


* €Fuit enim horribile illud Dei judicium, quod asinz prius se manifestavit 
Angelus quam Prophetz : quod asina infensum Deum sentiens ultra progredi 
ausa non est; quin potius pedes retulit, quum Propheta cceco avaritize suze im- 
pulsu adversus certam Dei prohibitionem se ingereret. Nam quod illi tandem 
responsum fuit ut iret : signum Divine indignationis fuit magis quam permissus. 
Postremo in summum ejus dedecus os apertum asinz fuit, ut illam haberet magis- 
tram qui Dei imperio subjicere se noluerat. Atque hoc prodigio ostendere voluit 
Dominus quam prodigiosa rés sit, veritatem in mendacium mutare.’ 


LECTUREAALT: 


2 PETER 2 : 17-22. 


‘THESE are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest ; to 
whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever. For when they speak great 
swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much 
wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error. While 
they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption : for of 
whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. For if after 
they have escaped the pollutions of the wofld through the knowledge of the Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the 
latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for 
them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, 
to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. But it is happened 
unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit 
again ; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.’ 


THE previous verses set forth the schismatic courses, the 
heretical profanity, the greed, sensuality, lawless blasphemy, 
and ensnaring arts, of the false teachers. In the verses now 
before us, while several of these features reappear, prominence 
is also given to their deceptive appearances, and idle, vaunt- 
ing ostentation. 


‘ These are wells without water, clouds’—or, according to the 
now received reading, and mists* ‘driven by a tempest ; for 
whom the blackness of darkness for ever hath been reserved.’ t 
The parallel to this in Jude stands in our common version 
thus : ‘Clouds ¢hey are without water, carried about of winds ; 


* καὶ ὁμίχλαι, (Sin. A, B, C.) 
+ ὑπὸ λαΐλαπος ἐλαυνόμεναι, (Luke 8 : 29; James 3 : 4,) οἷς ὁ ζόφος (Jude 13) 
τοῦ σκότους εἰς αἰῶνα τετήρηται. 





Lecture XI1—Chapter 2 : 17-22. 473 


trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked 
up by the roots ; raging waves of the sea, foaming out their 
own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the black- 
ness of darkness for ever.’ But let us confine ourselves to 
our present text. 

To understand the import and force of our Apostle’s two 
figures, you have but to remember the value set in that hot 
Eastern climate on the well of water and the cloud of dew or 
rain. As the former has ever been accounted a precious pos- 
session, the right of property in which is jealously guarded, 
and descends as an inheritance from father to son,* so both 
are frequently referred to in Scripture: as not only blessings 
in themselves, but fit types of Divine blessings in general. 
Thus, what better description could be given of the sin of 
Israel, and of the race at large, than is contained in those 
words by Jeremiah (2 : 13): ‘My people have committed two 
evils ; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, 
and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold 
no water’? And, on the other hand, God’s favor to such as 
break off their sins by righteousness is represented thus : 
‘The Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul 
in drought, and make fat thy bones : and thou shalt be like a 
watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters fail 
not. Or the shelter of His tenderness and compassion is 
compared to ‘the shadow of a cloud,’ ‘a cloud of dew in the 
heat of harvest ;’ and the abundance of blessing in the king- 
dom of Messiah to ‘rain upon the mown grass—showers that 
water the earth.’ + 

To come a little nearer, however, to our immediate topic, 
let it be observed that the same emblems are perhaps as 
often used with special reference to the teachings of heavenly 
wisdom. ‘The mouth of a righteous man,’ says Solomon, 
‘is as a well of life. . . . The law of the wise is a fountain of 
life, to depart from the snares of death.’ And He who was 
greater than Solomon again and again likeried His own word 
of truth and grace to ‘living water—a well of water springing 


* Gen. 21 : 30; 26: 15-22; John 4: 6, 12, etc. 
f ΞΘ ΘΙ 1 28} Ν᾽; 15.241; Ps: 72 2 6. 


474 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


up into everlasting life’ And as He stood in the temple on 
the last day, that great day of the feast, and saw perhaps the 
Levite returning according to custom from the pool of Siloam, 
bearing in his golden pitcher its sacred water, He cried aloud 
in the hearing of all: ‘If any man thirst, let him come unto 
me, and drink.’ * 

Then, for the other figure as employed in this same relation, 
I might remind you of the beginning of the song of Moses : 
‘My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as 
the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the 
showers upon the grass;’ and of the words of Job: ‘ My 
speech dropped upon them; and they waited for me as for 
the rain; and they opened their mouth wide as for the lat- 
ter rain. + It is, indeed, a curious fact that one Hebrew 
word ¢ means either the early rain or a teacher. 

Now from all this we can better appreciate the singular 
appropriateness of Peter’s metaphorical description of the 
false teachers, ‘ Zhese are wells without water, such as the 
soiled and thirsty wayfarer might hasten to in the vain hope 
of refreshment and cleansing, as the caravans of the wilder- 
ness, the troops of Tema and the companies of Sheba, repair 
in their extremity to the channels of the winter torrents, and, 
behold, they are as dry as the sand of the desert itself. ‘They 
were confounded because they had hoped ; they came thither, 
and were ashamed.’§ And similar is the disappointment of 
the parched earth and anxious husbandman, when they look 
up to the ‘clouds, or mists, bringing at last the promise of 
the long wished for rain, and see them suddenly vanish before 
the breath of the whirlwind. ‘Clouds and wind without rain, || 
seems, accordingly, to have been another familiar image for 
the illustration of treacherous hopes awakened by such spe- 
cious professions as should be made by these misleaders and 
destroyers of souls. 

Turning now from the prophecy to history, we at once per- 
ceive that there have never been wanting men in the Church, 


tMPrOVAIOM ne 5.12 9 12.» OLNYAy: 10, 14.; 7, 5:57: 
tT Deut. 32 +25 Job, 29 : 22, 23. t praia ; see Joel 2 : 23 marg. 


ὃ Job 6 : 19, 20. || Prov. 25 : 14. 


Lecture XTI—Chapier 2 : 17-22. 475 


ignorant of, or apostate from, all saving doctrine, and equally 
devoid of heavenly grace, who have had but to assume a fair 
outside, and set up for teachers, and presently they have 
drawn to them bewildered souls, ready to rush, so to speak, 
after every shifting, illusive gleam of the mirage of the desert. 
Poor sinners, defiled and fainting as they are, may not detect 
the cheat ; but their spiritual necessities are aggravated, not 
relieved, and a vain confidence only insures their ruin. 

Once more, therefore, does the holy Apostle sound the 
knell of doom against these perverters of the right ways of the 
Lord :* ‘for whom the blackness of darkness’—as it were the 
innermost prison of the realm of darkness, ‘ darkness for ever, + 
perpetual, hopeless, ‘ Lath been reserved’ in the Divine purpose 
from eternity; God’s judgments for His enemies, like the 
portion of His children, being already prepared. {—And then 
he goes on to justify this severity of vengeance, as well as 
what he had just been saying respecting the false seeming of 
the errorists. 


‘For, speaking§ great swelling words of vanity’—words 
puffed up into a sounding grandiloquence, but with nothing 
in them of the substance of truth, words as empty and fool- 
ish as they are bombastic—‘ they allure through the lusts of 
the fiesh’—using these as their means of decoy, or being 
themselves held captive zz || them—‘through much wanton- 
ness’ —by lascivious ways,** all the old forms of impurity un- 
der new pretences—‘ those who were clean escaped, really, or, 


* Acts 12: ΤΟΣ 

7 That εἰς αἰῶνα (cancelled by Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford, after Sin. B and 
ancient versions) belongs not to τετήρηται, but to τοῦ σκότους, (=‘ ever-during 
dark,’ Milton, P. Z. iii. 45,) may be inferred from the time of the verb. 

Ὁ Comp. 1 Pet. 1: 4, p. 46; Matt. 25 : 34, 41; Ps. 7: 12,133 and Revision of 
Rev. 14: 10. 

ὃ φϑεγγόμενοι. 

|| ¢v—which may be taken either as instrumental or local. Some cursive MSS. 
repeat it before ἀσελγείαις. 
** ἀσελγεΐαις----ἃ5 in v. 2, and I Pet. 4 : 3, (p. 264.) Comp. the plural nouns of 
ch. 3:11. The much of our English version was intended as compensation for 
the plural, and was, therefore, not marked in the original edition as a supple- 
ment.—The reading ἀσελγείας of some cursives is followed by the Vulgate, Sy- 
riac, etc., and edited by Tischendorf. 


476 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


as in the margin, for a little, a while, escaped—or, as it is now 
commonly read, scarcely, barely, gust escaping*—from those 
who live in error. 

By ‘those who live in error, ἡ we are no doubt to under- 
stand all such as have not the knowledge of God—the Gen- 
tiles especially, wandering their several ways of delusion and 
death ; and by those who had ‘veally escaped, or rather were 
‘just escaping, from them, recent coriverts to the Christian 
faith, not yet perhaps thoroughly instructed therein, nor 
established (v. 14) against the wiles of seducers. We are 
now expressly told, what had been more than once intimated 
before, (vs. 2, 14, etc.,) that the assault of these seducers should 
be mainly directed against the weakness of the flesh, in at- 
tempts to arouse the passions and revive the habits of licen- 
tiousness, to which fallen humanity is ever prone. But it is 
added both here and in Jude 16, that this foul purpose they 
would prosecute, and seek to veil its foulness, under the 
cover of ‘ great swelling words of vanity, 

Very many such words are recorded in church history, and 
that too as spoken in justification of unbridled lust. Some of 
the more openly abominable belong to the Gnostic and other 
antinomian heretics of early times, when men were taught 
that by faith and what was called knowledge they were raised 
above all restraints of law and obligations of morality—be- 
came, in fact, incapable of sin, and especially so superior to 
matter and all material influences, that no degradation or 
pollution of the body could possibly affect them in any way 
whatever,.any more than the ocean is defiled by what you 
throw into it. The later centuries also supply abundant 
illustrations of the text, as in the arrogant pretensions of 
Popery, the extravagances of the Libertines in the Reforma- 
tion period, and the Mormon and ‘ free love’ and spiritualistic 
ravings of our own day. 


One specimen of the ‘great swelling words of vanity’ is 


* For ὄντως all the recent editors substitute ὀλίγως, (A, B, not Sin. ;) and in- 
stead of ἀποφυγόντας the great majority have ἀποφεύγοντας, (Sin. A, B, C.) 
Τ ἐν πλάνῃ ; comp. I Pet. 2 : 25, πρόβατα πλανώμενα. 


Lecture AX/T—Chapter 2 : 17-22. 477 


given in the 19th verse: ‘ Promising* them liberty’—not liber- 
ty under law, liberty in keeping the commandments of God, 
and in the service of Christ, but liberty without law—such 
liberty as Satan promised our first parents, ‘Ye shall be as 
gods. + Ever since has that lie been murmuring in the ear 
of humanity, and it is still one chief bait by which Satan’s 
ministers ensnare their victims. Never before, indeed, were 
the nations in so great danger of being deceived and destroy- 
ed by it. Peter's word is not the less true, nor his warning 
less urgent, because, in the midst of much false doctrine, and 
in the support of outrageous claims, it has lately been repeat- 
ed by his pretended successor. ¢ 

Now also, as in former times, the futility of the promise 
may be inferred from the character of those who make it. 
How often must it be said of these prophets of liberty— 
these fierce denouncers of tyrants, and loud asserters of the 
dignity and independence of human nature—that ‘they them- 
selves are slaves§ of corruption’! And that this expression, 
strong as it is, is not too strong, is shown by an appeal not 
only to the understood conditions of ancient warfare, (1 Sam. 
17: 9,) but to common sense and experience: ‘ for by what 
any one hath been overcome, by that hath he also been enslaved. 
Paul expressed nearly the same thought: ‘ Know ye not, that 
to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye 
are to whom ye obey?’ And the sad truth was solemnly pro- 
claimed by the Lord Himself: ‘ Verily, verily, I say unto you, 
Whosoever committeth sin is the servant,’ or slave, ‘of sin.’ || 

The terrible if not hopeless severity of this bondage in the 
case of the apostate teachers is described in the next two 
verses :** ‘For if, having escaped from the pollutions of the 
world through’—or tu—‘ the true knowledge of the Lord and 


* ἐπαγγελλόμενοι. PAGERS 2.3 5: 

1 In the late encyclical letter of the Pope. § δοῦλοι. 

|| Rom. 6:16; John ὃ : 34 (δοῦλος.)---ὦ γάρ τις ἥττηται, τούτῳ Kal δεδούλω- 
tat. The pronouns ᾧ and τούτῳ are treated as neuter, the force of the state- 
ment as a general proposition being thus strengthened, by the Syriac, Peile, 
Alford, etc. Sin.’ omits the kai. 

** Applied—mistakenly, I think—rather to their dupes by Bengel, Dietlein, 
Fronmiiller, etc. ; to both, by Besser, 


478 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


Saviour Fesus Christ, they are yet entangled again therein, and 
overcome, the last state is become worse with then than the first. 
For it were better for them not to have known the way of righte- 
ousness, than, having known tt, to turn back from the holy com- 
mandment delivered unto them.* All which seems to require 
but little elucidation. 

‘ The way of righteousness’ is the same thing that was pre- 
viously called ‘the right’ or straight ‘way’ and ‘the way of 
truth’ (vs. 2, 15)—the one and only way, that is, in which a 
sinner, reclaimed from the error of his own way, becomes 
righteous—righteous in his relations to the violated law of 
God, and in his actual character and life. In the Gospel this 
way of righteousness is revealed to men as ‘the law of faith,’ + 
and is thus really the same thing also as what is called ‘ the 
holy commandment delivered’ unto us—holy in its origin and 
its aim. Now this holy commandment had been received by 
the false teachers ; in obedience to it they had entered on the 
way of righteousness, and so for a while escaped from the pol- 
lutions of the world. But by and by they relapse, turn from 
the holy commandment—repelled by its very holiness—and 
are again caught in the snare of the devil. And what our 
Apostle then asserts respecting them is, that ‘ the /ast state is 
become worse with them than the first; and that “12 were bet- 
ter for them’ to have continued in that first state, when they 
were as yet utter strangers to Christ and His salvation. Their 
guilt and danger are both greater now than they were then. It 
can no longer be said that they sin ‘in their ignorance,’ (1 Pet. 
1:14.) Formerly the shadow of the cross had not fallen on 
them, and they had assumed no sacramental vows therein. 
Now ‘they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and 


* Ei γὰρ ἀποφυγόντες τὰ μιάσματα (only here. Comp. ch. 1 : 4, p. 366, note 
1) τοῦ κόσμου ἐν ἐπιγνώσει τοῦ Κυρίου (Lachmann adds ἥμων after Sin. A, C, 6) καὶ 
σωτῆρος ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ, τούτοις δὲ πάλιν ἐμπλακέντες ἡττῶνται, γέγονεν αὐτοῖς τὰ 
ἔσχατα χείρονα τῶν πρώτων. Kpeitrov (Sin. κρεῖσσον) γὰρ ἣν αὐτοῖς μὴ ἐπεγνωκέναι 
τὴν ὁδὸν τῆς δικαιοσύνης, ἢ ἐπιγνοῦσιν ἐπιστρέψαι (Alford: ὑποστρέψαι ; Lach- 
mann: εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω ὑποστρέψαι) ἐκ (Lachmann: ἀπὸ) τῆς παραδοϑεΐσης αὐτοῖς 
ἁγίας ἐντολῆς, (comp. Jude 3.) Sin. ἢ ἐπιγνοῦσιν εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω ἀνακάμψαι ἀπὸ 
κτλ. 


fom 5 : 27: 


Lecture XII—Chapter 2 : 17-22. 479 
put Him to an open shame,’ and live to destroy the souls for 
which He died. For such deliberate, desperate wickedness 
can there still be forgiveness? This at least is certain, that, 
familiar as they are with the facts and appeals of the Gospel, 
their hearts hardened, their consciences seared, and the Holy 
Spirit grieved and quenched, by their malignant sin, there is 
far less likelihood now of their being ‘renewed to repentance’ * 
than when they sat in nature’s darkness, or were bowing be- 
fore their idols. It is the very case described by our Lord: 
‘When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh 
through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he 
saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out ; 
and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and gar- 
nished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other 
spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell 
there ; and the last state of that man is worse than the first.’ 


‘But, adds the Apostle in conclusion, as if to relieve and 
fortify his own heart, as well as his brethren, against a possible 
inference from the frightful spectacle of apostasy, ‘there hath 
happened unto them that of the true proverb: The dog turned 
back to his own vomit, and: The sow that was washed into 
the wallowing-place of mire. + In the Proverbs of Solomon 
(26 : 11) we have the first of these two forms, ‘As a dog re- 
turneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly ;’ and the 
other may have been equally current in the popular speech. 
The thought suggested by the whole verse is evidently this : 
Let us not be stumbled nor dismayed. ‘The sure foundation 
of God’t has not given way. These wretched men were 
never what they professed to be. They had, indeed, under- 
gone a process of external reformation ; but it was external 
merely, their heart all the while remaining unchanged, ‘like 


* Heb. 6:6; Matt. 12 : 43-45. 

7 Συμβέβηκε δὲ (Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford omit δὲ, after Sin.’ A, B) 
αὐτοῖς τὸ τῆς ἀληϑοῦς παροιμίας, (comp. Matt. 21 : 21: τὸ τῆς συκῆς.) Κύων ἐπισ- 
τρέψας ἐπὶ τό ἴδιον ἐξέραμα" καὶ" Ὗς Aovoapévn, εἰς κύλισμα (Alford: κύλισμον) 
βορβόρου. The nouns ἐξερ., κυλ., and βορβ. occur nowhere else in the New Tes- 
tament. 

ἀπ om. 2. 1 Το; 


480 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


the washing of a swine, which you may make clean, but can 
never make cleanly.’* So, notwithstanding the purification 
of the word and baptism, these men retained their old animal 
nature still unsubdued ; and what wonder, if, following their 
brutal instincts, they rush back to their brutal indulgences ? 


1. One lesson, therefore, to be learned from this passage is, 
that, while it does not need the example of these false teach- 
ers to prove that there is such a thing as falling from grace— 
alas ! how common a thing is it with us all !—yet even in their 
case there is nothing whatever to prove that an elect, regen- 
erate child and heir of God—the new creature in Christ Jesus 
—will ever again become a child of the devil, and an heir of 
wrath.f 

2. But, secondly, since so many begin, in the eyes of men, 
to ‘run well,’ who by and by slacken their speed, and finally 
‘draw back unto perdition,’ let none of us, whatever we may 
think concerning our spiritual condition and attainments, be 
high-minded or rest in that opinion, but, in view of the many 
deplorable cases of self-deception and failure, let us ‘ pass the 
time of our sojourning in fear.’ As it is ‘by patient continu- 
ance in well doing’ that believers ‘seek for, so in no other 
way can they hope to attain to, ‘ glory and honor and immor- 
tality.’ ἢ 

3. In the third place, we perceive the blessed distinction of 
Christ’s faithful ministers. They.are as wells of living water, 
themselves communicating with the infinite Fountain of all 
truth and grace, and from His fulness dispensing to the weary 
pilgrims of faith ; clouds, supplied from the same Source, and 
shedding freely their treasures of blessing, to render at once 
beautiful and fruitful the garden of the Lord. But, on the 
other hand, how great the dishonor and how fearful the doom 
of the unfruitful! ‘Shame and everlasting contempt’! ‘The 
blackness of darkness for ever’! ὃ 

4. In the fourth place, it will be well for you to be on your 


* Burkitt. teRom: 81917); 2)Cor. 5.2 τῇ ; johns 1445 Eph, 2 : 3. 
ΤΊ ΔΙ. Ὁ 5: ΕΘ 0 5 29; tebet τ τὰ; ποτα, 2: ἢ. 
δ Τδῃ. 12 : 2. 


Lecture XIT.—Chapter 2 : 17-22. 481 


guard in reference to the cry for liberty, that is sounding 
louder and louder over all the earth. While there is much in 
it that is prompted by the felt necessities of nations, and that 
stirs the generous heart, it is also for that very reason made 
use of by ‘men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the 
faith,’ for effecting the dissolution of all bonds in the Church, 
and State, and family. They 


‘bawl for freedom in their senseless mood, 
And still revolt when truth would set them free. 
License they mean, when they cry liberty ; 
For who loves that must first be wise and good.’* 


Beware of all such. ‘Brethren, ye have been called unto 
liberty ; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh.’ Ye 
are ‘not without law to God, but under the law to Christ ;” 
and therefore also ye are the only free men. ‘If the Son 
make you free, ye shall be free indeed.’+ Otherwise, call 
yourselves republicans, democrats, or what you will, ye must 
abide in the slavery of sin. 

5. Then learn the degradation and loathsomeness of such a 
life—of a life spent in mere sensual pleasure—in ‘ fulfilling the 
desires of the flesh and of the mind.’ It is not here only that 
the wicked are in Scripture classed with dogs and swine. 
‘Give not that which is holy,’ said Christ, ‘unto the dogs, 
neither cast ye your pearls before the swine. ‘ Beware, 
writes Paul to the Philippians, ‘of the dogs.’ And in the clos- 
ing scene of the Revelation, when the heavenly guide has 
announced to John the blessedness of those who ‘enter in 
through the gates into the city, we hear him adding with a 
holy contempt: ‘ For without are the dogs.’ ᾧ 

6. Lastly, may God in His mercy save us all from the guilt 
and ruin of the backslider, and of him who, knowing his 
Lord’s will, did it not, and shall be beaten with many stripes. 
Hearers of the Gospel, you cannot be too often warned that 


* Milton, Somet xii. 

f 2 Tim, 3): 8; Gals 5 2 13/8 Cor, 0,3 215) John 8: 36. 

f{ Eph.2:3; Matt. 7:6, (τῶν yotpwyv;) Phil.3:2; (τοὺς xtvac;) Rev. 
22 : 15, (οἱ xuvec.)—Comp. Horace, fist. I. 2. 26: ‘ Vixisset canis immundus, 
vel amica luto sus,’ 


482 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


there is not one of you but is exposed to even a heavier woe 
than that of Chorazin and Bethsaida. ‘ For if we sin wilfully 
after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there 
remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful look- 
ing for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour 
the adversaries. He that despised Moses’ law died without 
mercy under two or three witnesses : of how much sorer pun- 
ishment shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under 
foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the cove- 
nant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath 
done despite unto the Spirit of grace’ ?* 


* Luke 12 : 473; 10:13; Heb. 10 : 26-29. 


TECTURE Conn: 


2 PETER 3: 1-4. 


‘Tus second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you ; in both which I stir up 
your pure minds by way of remembrance: that ye may be mindful of the words 
which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us 
the apostles of the Lord and Saviour: knowing this first, that there shall come 
in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the 
promise of His coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as 
they were from the beginning of the creation.’ 


Tuat God had made Jesus, the crucified, ‘ both Lord and 
Christ,’ was the one great truth to be learned from the mira- 
cle of Pentecost, as that miracle was expounded by Peter to 
the wondering multitude.* And in the first chapter of this 
Epistle (v. 16) he gives us to understand that to proclaim 
‘the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ’ might be 
said to constitute the burden of apostolic preaching. That He 
who was dead now sits exalted at the right hand of God ; that 
He has there received, and is now Himself the Dispenser of, 
the fulness of the Holy Ghost ; and that from thence He will 
yet come again in the glory of His kingdom to judge the 
quick and the dead, and to make all things new; what but 
this is the ‘most holy faith’ + on which the Church rests, and 
the denial of which is at once the root and the offspring of 
all heresy? To establish his brethren, therefore, in this ever 
present and fundamental truth was now the aim of the aged 
Apostle’s ministry both by word and letter; and he was the 
more earnest and diligent therein, as foreseeing the assaults 
that were to be made on these very doctrines, (ch. I : 12-15.) 


* Acts 2 : 36. t Jude 20. 


484 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


The denial of Christ as Lord and Rxedeemer—of His work 
of atonement in our nature under the curse, and of His pre- 
sent supremacy as the Anointed Higzh-Priest within the veil 
—was even then about to open the floodgate of sin within the 
Church itself; and the second chapter is wholly taken up 
with the description and denunciation of these abominable 
deceivers. The third chapter deals with a more subtle but 
not less fatal form of antichris;tian error, when the un- 
godly and the sinner should take ‘the seat of the scornful, and 
direct their profane wit against tle Church’s blessed hope of 
her Lord’s return and of the restitution of all things.* The 
statement and refutation of this error mainly occupy the first 
half of the chapter ; and ther the truth assailed is reasserted, 
its proper bearing on the life of believers is unfolded, the 
seeming delay in the fulfilment of the promise is accounted 
for, and the authority of Paul is cited in confirmation of these 
things. The writer adds a renewed warning against apostasy, 
and an exhortation to growth in grace, and in the knowledge 
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and closes with a 
doxology. 


‘This now second epistle, beloved, write I unto you,’ + that’ 
the First Epistle of Peter, to which the present writer quite 
naturally alludes, in passing, as his own,{ should so soon have 
been followed by a second from the same hand, was an evi- 
dence of his affectionate solicitude, as well as of the, import- 
ance and urgency of the subject matter. What that was, he 
immediately explains: ‘2 both which I stir up your pure mind ὃ 
by way of remembrance, that ye may be mindful of the words 
spoken before || by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of 
us the Apostles of the Lord aud Saviour. , 

Here again, as in the first chapter, (vv. et, the appeal 


29 JOS ig ΤΣ Whe - 117; Ἰλοίθ 2. 21: 

t Ταύτην ἤδη, ἀγαπητοὶ, δευτέραν ὑμῖν γράφω ἐπιστολήν---ἤδη belonging to 
δευτέραν. 

t ‘He should have done so at the outset,’ says De Wette; as if any thing 
like a deliberate, formal claim of authorship would have been less suspicious 
than this quiet, incidental reference. 

§ διάνοιαν. See our English version at 1 Pet. 1 : 13, and elsewhere. 

|| τῶν προειρημένων ῥημάτων. 


Lecture XII1—Chapter 3 : 1-4. 485 


is to the twofold, concurrent testimony of prophets and apos- 
tles—prophets anticipating in their predictions the authorita- 
tive message of apostles, and apostles confirming by their 
message the predictions of prophets. For Peter’s phrase 
intimates clearly enough that ‘the commandment of us the 
Apostles’ is rather the commandment conveyed by the Apos- 
tles from the Lord and Saviour, as if we should say, according 
to the better reading of the clause, your Apostles’ command- 
ment of the Lord and Saviour.* 

‘Your Apostles’—possibly with a special reference to Paul 
and his associates, as those who had first preached the Gospel 
in Asia Minor.t The expression, however, is one which any 
Apostle might have used, and without any such limitation. 
The Apostles belonged all of them to the whole Church, and 
they all preached the same Gospel. 

That Gospel, as we had occasion to observe in the last lec- 
ture,t may properly be called a ‘ commandment’ as coming 
to men from Him who is ‘zhe Lord and Saviour, sanctioned 
by His authority, and claiming in His name instant and abso- 
lute faith and obedience.§ 

Now, those to whom this Epistle was addressed had re- 
ceived in faith ‘the words spoken before by the holy Prophets, 
and they had ‘purified their souls in obeying the truth’ as 


* τῆς τῶν ἀποστόλων ὑμῶν ἐντολῆς, τοῦ Κυρίου καὶ Σωτῆρος---τῶν ἀπ. and τοῦ Kup. 
k.& . forming a double genitive depending on ἐντολῆς, and ὑμῶν depending on ἀπ. 
—The reading ὑμῶν is sustained, says Huther, by ‘almost all the authorities,’ 
(Sin. A, B, C, G, J, Vulgate, etc.,) and is edited by Matthiz, Lachmann, Tischen- 
dorf, Wordsworth, Alford. De Wette, however, holds to the Recepta, ἡμῶν, which 
he construes, not in apposition with door. (comp. Acts 10 : 41; 13: 333 I Cor. 
1 : 18,) but as governed by it, our Afostles. Of course, this affords him another 
opportunity of speaking of the writer as again betrayed by Jude (vv. 17, 18) into 
a momentary forgetfulness of the part he had undertaken to play, as one of the 
Apostles himself! Comp. p, 460, note *. How often have we occasion to re- 
peat Dietlein’s remark: “The procedure of our learned theological criticism in 
regard to Holy Writ is here of such a kind, that any jurist would reckon himself 
disgraced, were he in the most trifling law-matter to go to work in the same Style.’ 

Th pce Pets = 12) pe 52 

t See p. 478. ' 

§ It is therefore unnecessary and, I think, erroneous to restrict the word so as 
to denote either a commandment to beware of the false teachers, (De Wette,) or 
a commandment to be prepared for the Lord’s second coming, (Benson, Huther, 
Wiesinger, etc.) 


486 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


announced to them in ‘their Afostles’ commandment of the 
Lord and Saviour. They were thus ‘built,’ as Paul likewise. 
wrote to some of their number, ‘on the foundation of the 
Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief 
corner-stone.’ And what Peter labors from first to last to 
impress upon them is, that that foundation was not to be im- 
proved by any professors of ‘science falsely so called ’—pre- 
tenders to a higher knowledge or new revelations—that 
should appear among them. Peter himself had nothing 
of the sort—no new gospel, nor even any modification of 
the old gospel, to offer for their acceptance. He sought 
merely to establish them where they already stood *—to ‘ stir 
up their pure minds by way of remembrance ; that they should be 
mindful of’ what they had learned, and so make it available 
for their defence against seducers, as well as for every other 
necessity of the Christian life. As it would be their sufficient 
safeguard against the falsehoods and immoralities which had 
just been exposed in the second chapter, so likewise against 
another perilous snare, to the consideration of which he now 
summons their most earnest attention. 


‘Knowing this first’—the same formula that we met with 
at ch. 1 : 20; in both places it introduces what the writer 
deemed of the utmost importance to be understood and re- 
membered— that there shall come in the last days’ —a common 
scriptural designation of the days of Messiah, or of this pre- 
sent economy t—‘ scoffers, or mockers, as the same word ¢ is 
rendered in the only other place where it occurs, namely, the 
corresponding passage in Jude, (17, 18:) ‘ But ye, beloved, be 
mindful of the words which were spoken before by the Apos- 
tles of our Lord Jesus Christ ; how they told you that in the 
last time there shall be mockers, walking according to their 
own lusts of ungodliness. There is, moreover, in our text as 
now universally read, a peculiar emphasis of this kind : ‘ There 


* 1 Pet. 1: 22; Eph.2: 20; 1 Tim. 6: 20; (τῆς ψευδωνύμου γνώσεως, the false- 
Ly named gnosis; ) IPet. X : 12, 25: 5:12; 2 Pet. 13,4, c2sqq.5 aise 

fiGomp:is.252i5 emesis 20) Actsi2 = 17; ἘΠῸΡ- ὙΠ Ἐν δ οι 

t ἐμπαῖκται. For ἐμπαιγμῶν, Heb. 11 : 36, our common version has mockings, 
and the verb ἐμπαΐζω it invariably (thirteen times) renders 20 mock. 


Lecture XTIT—Chapter 3 : 1-4. 487 


shall come in the last days mockers tn mockery, * living in 
mockery as, so to speak, the element of their being—wholly 
possessed by a spirit of frivolous, scornful disregard of sacred 
things, and uttering in regard to them mere raillery and ban- 
ter. The old doctrine, in particular, of the Lord’s return to 
judgment, should be with them a very favorite topic for the 
exercise of their powers of contemptuous ridicule. They are 
described as ‘ walking according to} their own lusts’ t—hav- 
ing no other rule of conduct, no other aim in life, than the in- 
dulgence of their corrupt inclinations—‘ and saying: Where 
2s the promise of His coming ? For, since the fathers fell asleep, 
all things continue thus’ §—that is, just as they are—‘ from the 
beginning of the creation. 

It will be observed that they do not condescend to name 
Him of whose coming they speak. Or perhaps this is one of 
the points in which they derisively mimic the style of Chris- 
tian love. In the writings of John, for instance, the Saviour 
is frequently thus referred to ; as when the believer’s duty is 
declared, ‘so to walk even as He walked ;’ or we are re- 
minded of the great illustration and exemplar of love, in that 
‘He laid down His life for us. Says Bengel: ‘The name is 
readily supplied by the believing heart, full of the memory of 
the Lord.’ || Now there seems to be something like a 
malignant echo of this tone in the taunt of the mockers: 
‘Where ts the promise of His coming 2’ 

And indeed the same spirit shows itself in their speaking 
of the Lord’s coming at all as a matter of ‘promise’ To the 
bereaved Church it was truly so, and often, as she sat expect- 
ant in her loneliness and tears, she was heard repeating to 
herself the gracious assurance which she had again and again 
received first of all from the lips of her Lord Himself, and 





* ἐν ἐμπαιγμονῇ (nowhere else) éumaixrat—the reading of Sin. A, B, C, the 
Syriac and Arabic versions, etc. 

{ κατά---β in vv. 13, 15. 

¢ For αὑτῶν ἐπιϑυμίας. Griesbach, Scholz, Lachmann read ἐπιϑ. αὑτῶν. Al- 
ford cancels airév.—Jude (16) gives this clause twice in nearly the same words. 

§ οὕτω. 

| ‘ Nomen facile supplent credentes, plenum pectus habentes memoria Domini.’ 
Comp. 1 John 2 : 6; 3: 3,5, 7, 16;4:17; 3 John 7, (Acts 5 : 41: τοῦ ὀνόματος, 
the name.) 


488 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


which, renewed to her in the very hour of His departure by 
the bright angels of the ascension, was long kept fresh in her 
remembrance by the witness of the Comforter, and the minis- 
try of Apostles, and her own loving desire. Nor is this 
habitual looking for Christ an exercise of faith and hope pecu- 
liar to the early Christians. On the contrary, there is not one 
of all the exceeding great and precious promises still awaiting 
fulfilment, that is, or ought ever to be, so dear to the children 
of God, as that their Lord will come again. ‘The appearance 
of the glory of their great God and Saviour Jesus Christ’ is 
their ‘ blessed hope.’ * 

But just as certainly it is not so to the wicked or the false 
professor or the apostate. For them the great day of the 
Lord is the most terrible of all possibilities—‘a day of wrath, 
a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desola- 
tion, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and 
thick darkness ;’ and well do they know in their secret con- 
sciousness that, if a reality, it can be to them nothing else but 
that. And so by following hard after their own lusts, and by 
the many arts of self-delusion in which the heart of the sinner 
soon attains a fatal skill, they strive to quench their forebod- 
ings, and oftentimes succeed in doing so, until at last they 
either settle down into a state of stolid indifference, saying, 
‘The Lord will not do good, neither will He do evil, + or the 
threatened vengeance even becomes the theme of mirthful 
jest, and again imitating the language, and thus the more 
bitterly scoffing at the devout anticipations, of their pious 
neighbors, they ask, ‘Where is the promise of Fis coming ?’ 
What has become of it? There are no signs whatever of its 
fulfilment. Has the promise, then, been withdrawn? Or was 
it not rather from the very first a careless sham, or a cruel 
fraud ? 

Just so the ungodly in ancient Israel were accustomed to 
flout the warnings and denunciations of their prophets: ‘ Let 
Him make speed, and hasten His work, that we may see it: 
and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and 


* Tit. 2: 13, (ἐπιφάνειαν τῆς δόξης τοῦ μεγάλου Θεοῦ καὶ Σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Ἴ. X.) 
t Zeph. 1 : 12, 14, 15. ἢ 


Lecture XTII—Chapter 3 : 1-4. 489 


come, that we may knowit. . .. Where is the God of judg- 
ment 2% 

There is, however, apparently a slight difference between 
the two cases. The mockers of the New Testament times 
were to assume, you will observe, a philosophical air, and pro- 
ceed on what they claimed to be strictly logical principles. 
They are prepared to argue the matter: ‘ For, since the fathers’ 
—the grey-haired fathers of the human race,f or the Jewish 
patriarchs,t or rather generally those to whom the promise 
came and who leaned thereon,§ especially perhaps the first 
generation of the Christian Church ||—‘ szuce the fathers fell 
asleep’—still another instance, I suppose, of ironical accom- 
modation to the dialect of faith and of the hope of the resur- 
rection—‘ all things continue thus from the beginning of the 
creation, if, indeed, there is any such thing, properly speaking, 
as the beginning of the creation—for that too they probably 
mean to call in question, or to suggest it as a doubtful matter. 

Now, here it is taken for granted that the Second Coming 
of the Lord, if it ever took place, would introduce some great 
change in the physical constitution of things. And the utter 
unlikelihood, to say the least, of any such revolution is inferred 
from the actual and historical uniformity in the laws and pro- 
cesses of nature, and the consequent stability of the universe 
—a uniformity and stability, which are represented as having 
existed unbroken since the world began, if it ever began. 

* The validity of this argument will come under consideration 
in our next Lecture. Meanwhile, it should be remarked that 
it is very much the same sort of argument that has of late 
years vaunted itself against the word of God. Indeed, the 
speculative tendency of our times has taken-a yet deeper 
plunge into atheistic folly, by denying not so much the proba- 
bility as the possibility of all supernatural intervention of every 
kind. But even this extreme conclusion rests on no other 
or firmer ground than that assumed by the mockers of our 
text: ‘AM things continue thus from the beginning of the crea- 
tion.’ Only our philosophers go on to prove that all things 


ἜΓΤΘῚ δ: ΤΟ sm valleys 1G) + Briickner. + Estius, Pott, Wiesinger. 
§ Bengel, Huther. || Thiersch, De Wette, Fronmiiller. 


400 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


must ever have been just so, and must ever continue to be 
just so, because they are now, and for some time past have 
been, just so, and because neither telescope nor microscope 
nor chemical analysis nor the profoundest metaphysics can 
find reason to believe that they ever could have been, or ever 
can be, otherwise. For example, we have never seen a dead 
body brought to life, nor has it any power of self-motion, nor 
can we conceive of any combination of physical causes, or 
arrangement of material circumstances, by which it could be 
made to breathe again ; therefore no dead body can possibly 
have been reanimated in the ages that are past, or can be in 
the ages that are to come! What child does not see that the 
spirit of sheer atheism, as I said, prompts such reasoning as 
this? 


And it is surely a very startling fact, that by nothing is our 
age more distinguished from all that have preceded it, than by 
the prevalence of what may well be called this insolence, or 
this insanity, of science. Nor has there ever been an age, I 
think, when the promise of Christ’s coming to judge the 
world and reign in righteousness was so distasteful to His 
Church, both its ministry and its membership. A few years 
ago, it is true, ‘there was a cry made: Behold, the Bridegroom 
cometh ; go ye out to meet Him,’* and that cry still sounds 
in Christendom. But of those whom it has aroused from 
slumber how many have been merely irritated by it, and how 
many mock! What if these very days of ours be even ina 
special sense zhe last, the end, of the days, or rather, the last 
days,t in which the predicted mockers were to appear! My 
own belief is that it is even so—that we have arrived very 
near to the close of the present dispensation, and that the 
throne of our Lord and Saviour and Judge will speedily be 
unveiled. 


* Matt. 25 : 6. 

{ Instead of the Recepia ἐσχάτου (comp. the better reading of Heb. 1: 1, and 
the Sept. Numb, 24 : 14) Lachmann, Tischendorfy Alford read ἐσχάτων (Sin. A, 
B, C.** Comp. Sept. Dan. 10: 14, and 1 Pet. 1: 20, p. 79, note 1.) The two 
readings have the same meaning, ἐσχάτων followed by the article being also 
neuter, 


Lecture XTII—Chapter 3: 1-4. 401 


1. The first use, therefore, that I make of this passage is to 
warn you anew against the sneering infidelity of our times in 
regard to the Second Advent, the resurrection of the dead, 
and eternal judgment. Take these things away, and, says 
Calvin, ‘there is no longer any Gospel, the strength of Christ 
is exhausted, religion perishes utterly. In plucking up the 
faith of Christ’s coming, Satan aims directly at the throat of 
the Church. For to what end did Christ die and rise again, 
but that along with Himself He might some day redeem us 
from death, and gather us into life eternal? Piety, therefore, 
is destroyed to its foundation, unless the faith of the resurrec- 
tion abides unshaken ; and so it is on this side that Satan 
most fiercely assails us.’* 

Grow in the love of Christ, and you will grow in the love of 
His appearing. You will also be less in danger of being 
shaken in mind, nay, your hope itself will be confirmed, when 
you find the Apostle’s word fulfilled by the rise and impious 
confidence of them that mock, and who, ‘ because they have 
no changes, therefore fear not God.’ As anothert wrote more 
than a century and a half ago: ‘ These are the dregs of man- 
kind, found in,the dregs of time. . . . Such as are in the chair 
of the scorner are in the highest form in the devil’s school.’ 
You will stand in awe of that saying of the wise man, ‘Surely 
God scorneth the scorners, § and to their frequent taunt, 
‘Where is the promise of His coming ?’ you will deem it suf- 
ficient to reply: It is written in the Scriptures of truth, and it 
lives in the heart of Christ and His people. 

Yes, that hope maketh not ashamed. The promise shall 
not fail. Our Lord will come again to fulfil our joy in Him 
and His own joy in us, and all things are nearly ready for His 
coming. Then shall the faith of the fathers be vindicated, 


* ‘¥zec est periculosa illusio, quum dubitationem injiciunt ultimz resurrec- 
tionis, qua sublata nullum amplius est Evangelium, exinanita est Christi virtus, 
periit tota religio. Ergo Ecclesiz jugulum recta petit Satan, dum fidem adven- 
tus Christi convellit. Quorsum enim mortuus est Christus et resurrexit, nisi ut 
secum aliquando nos a morte redemptos in vitam zternam colligat? Funditus 
itaque diruitur pietas, nisi fixa manet resurrectionis fides: ideo hac parte acrius 
nos oppugnat Satan.’ 

Tt Ps. 55: 19. t Burkitt. § Prov. 3 : 34. 


492 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


and they that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, and 
great shall be the joy of the reunited children of God. 

2. It is perfectly obvious, and that too from the whole strain 
of Both Epistles, that the writer of them had not the least 
thought of any millennium of truth and holiness prior to the 
fulfilment of that promise. The last days—the days preceding 
the Lord’s return—were to be distinguished by the preva- 
lence rather of ungodliness and mocking unbelief. And to 
this agree the other Apostles. John, for instance, knew it to 
be ‘the last time’ by the swarming antichrists that were 
abroad already in his day. And that no improvement in this 
respect was looked for is plain enough from Paul’s teaching in 
one of his earliest Epistles with regard to the destruction of 
the last great Antichrist by the brightness of the Lord’s ap- 
pearing, as well as from his warning to Timothy in the latest 
of his Epistles, that evil men and seducers should wax worse 
and worse, deceiving and being deceived. It is indeed un- 
questionable that the general tenor of the New Testament is 
to the same effect.* 

3. The promise that Christ will come again is the peculiar 
treasure, and the spirit of waiting for Him should now be the 
distinguishing characteristic, of the Church which He pur- 
chased with His own blood. So far as that spirit is wanting 
in our religious experience, just so far is our experience defec- 
tive, no matter how active and earnest we may be in other 
directions. . 


I John 2:18; 2 Thess. 2:8; 1 Tim. 4:13; 2 Tim. 3:1, 13. 


LECTURE XT F: 


2 PETER 3 : 5-9. 


‘For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens 
were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby 
the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: but the heavens 
and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto 
fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, be 
not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, 
and a thousand years as one day. The Lordis not slack concerning His promise, 
as some men count slackness ; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not ale that 
any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.’ 


_ THEsE verses contain the Apostle’s reply to the taunt and 
the argument of the scoffers of the last days. The taunt 
was directed against the Christian hope of the Lord’s Second 
Coming—a hope resting on His own express and oft-repeated 
promise ; and the argument by which they pretended to jus- 
tify the taunt was drawn from the fact that, though the fa- 
thers to whom the promise first came had long since fallen 
asleep, there were still no signs of its being fulfilled either to 
them or their children, but, on the contrary, the natural 
course of things went on uninterrupted, just as it had done 
—so they assume—from the beginning of the creation. And 
you will now observe that it is this assumption that is first dis- 
posed of. 

‘ For of this they are willingly ignorant’—they talk so only 
because a well-known fact in the world’s history escapes their 
notice or their recollection—a fact so well known that it must 
be that they prefer not to notice it, or else they choose to for- 


494 Lectures ou the Second Epistle of Peter. 


get it *—namely this, ‘ chat, by the word of God, heavens were 
Srom of old,t and the earth standing out of the water and 
in the water ;’ this translation of the second clause is certainly 
inexact, but the clause itself, however translated, is a difficult 
one. We shall at least get something liker the original, if we 
say: and earth out of water and by water consisting or sub- 
sisting $—‘ whereby the world that then was, being flooded § 
with water, perished. ‘There are several minute questions of 
construction here, || Avith which you need not be troubled. 
The main points are sufficiently evident. 

It is not so, says Peter, that ‘all things continue thus from 
the beginning of the creation.’ There has been at any rate 
one mighty break in the settled order of nature, and there is 
therefore nothing ridiculous, or even essentially improbable, 
in the idea of there yet being a second. These men would 
seem never to have heard of the flood ;** and it is obvious 
that their objection would have been every whit as plausible 
——in some respects perhaps even more so—in Noah’s days, if 
then urged, and no doubt it was, against his warning of the 
coming deluge, as it is now, when urged against the promise 
of the Lord’s coming. Then too there were heavens and an 
earth—earth with its heavenly surroundings of clouds and at- 
mosphere—and these not of yesterday, but from of old. And 
then too there were your so-called laws of nature, as steady 
and seemingly unchangeable as now. Whatever shock or 
derangement the primeval world had suffered in the hour of 


* Aavbavet γὰρ αὐτοὺς τοῦτο ϑέλοντας. Nota few interpreters from Hammond 
to Huther refer τοῦτο to what precedes in v. 4, they who are of this mind are igno- 
rant. But the sense is inferior, and such a use of ϑέλω without example in the 
New Testament. Comp. also v. 8. 

T οὐρανοὶ (in v. 7, with the article) ἧσαν ἔκπαλαι, (comp. ch. 2:3, p. 444, 
note ||.) 

t καὶ γῆ (in v. 7 with the article) ἐξ ὕδατος καὶ δι’ ὕδατος σονεστῶσα ; (see the 
English margin, and Col. 1 : 17.—Sin.? διὰ 66, συνεστῶτα.) 

ὃ κατακλυσϑεῖς, (only here.) The noun, κατακλυσμός (ch. 2: 5) is always, in 
our version, flood. 

|| See the Revision of this Epistle, 272 Zoc. 

** Rosenmiiller’s notion that the text refers to some pre-Adamite catastrophe, 
though favored by Jacobus, ( ,) is plainly erroneous. The Bible has 
nothing to say about any such thing, and, as Peter himself probably knew nothing 
of it, so the scoffers may well be supposed to be as innocently ignorant. 


Lecture XIV. 





Chapter 3 : 5-9. 495 


the first transgression had occurred at least sixteen centuries 
before. During all that time every thing in the heavens and 
earth had gone forward as smoothly and regularly as the ris- 
ing and setting of the sun, or the flowing and ebbing of the 
tides. What, then, was there to fear? And Noah’s contem- 
poraries did not fear, but, while he preached and hammered, 
they mocked. His strange announcement and its accompa- 
nying reproofs soon got likewise to be an old story, and, as he 
went forth to his daily work of faith, he was, of course, often 
met with such greetings as, ‘Still no deluge? That fine 
shower yesterday was promising, but did not quite answer 
the purpose. Few signs of it this bright morning. How 
long are we to wait for the real thing? Do let us have that 
grand affair come off, when we are to see water—wherever it 
is all to come from—learn to run uphill, and only this huge, 
grotesque boat of yours will survive the wreck of a world.’ 
Thus they ‘rejoiced in their boastings, * and walked after 
their own lusts, while Noah unabashed still plied his Divine 
task. 

They too forgot, or were willingly ignorant, that that ‘an- 
cient world’ (ch. 2:5) had not existed from eternity—that 
the laws of nature had neither created it, nor enacted them- 
selves—and that on the same Almighty Will, which had 
brought it into being, it must be absolutely and momentarily 
dependent. ‘By the word of God, and that unaided and alone 
—by the calm “2 εὐ zt de’ of omnipotence—‘ God made the fir- 
mament, and divided the waters which were under the firma- 
ment from the waters which were above the firmament: and 
it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the 
evening and the morning were the second day. And God 
said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together 
unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. 
And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering toge- 
ther of the waters called He Seas: and God saw that it was 
good.’ ἡ 

In this way, ᾧ then, and in no other, the heavens and earth 


* James 4: 16. t+ Gen. I : 7-10. 
t It is quite in accordance with De Wette’s treatment of our Epistle, that he 


496 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 
arose—stood together,* as Peter’s word properly is—‘ out of 
water, the waters of the chaotic deep, over which brooded 
the creative Spirit, being not merely the place of the world’s 
origin, but furnishing also the materials from which it was 
formed. Nor was that all. Water had, moreover, an impor- 
tant instrumental agency—‘ dy water’ t—both in moulding 
and shaping the earth, and in the preparation and adornment 
of its heavenly canopy. But throughout the whole process it 
was still ‘the word of God, that alone was efficient and con- 
trolling. And so, when through the wickedness of man it 
repented God of the work of His own hands, He needed no 
other means for the world’s destruction than the very element 
out of which and by which it had been constituted and up- 
held: ‘ whereby’—that is, probably, 27 consequence of which 
circumstances, or arrangement of things§ —‘the world that 
then was, including the heavens and the earth, and that impi- 
ous generation with all its works, || ‘ de¢zg flooded with water, 
perished. Not, indeed, that the material substance of the 
antediluvian world was then annihilated; but so great was 
the change in other respects, that what followed may well be 
spoken of as another world, even as Noah became the second 
‘ather of mankind. 

The whole argumentation, therefore, of the scoffer is based 
on a falsehood. All things are zo¢ now as they have been 
since the beginning of the creation. But, continues Peter, 


thinks the writer drew his cosmogony, as well as his subsequent description of 
the destruction by fire, rather from heathen sources. 

* συνεστῶσα is perhaps best taken as referring by zeugma both to γῆ and dupa- 
voc. So many of the best commentators from Gicumenius to Wiesinger. 

+ dv ὕδατος is referred by Alford somewhat unintelligibly to the waters above 
the firmament—by De Wette to both the upper and nether waters, the latter being 
disposed arbitrarily to restrict this phrase to the firmament, and translating the 
preposition through the midst of, between. 

t Gicumenius : Ἡ γῇ ἐξ ὕδατος μὲν, ὡς ἐξ ὑλικοῦ αἰτίου, δι’ ὕδατος δὲ ὡς διατε- 
λικοῦ. ὕδωρ γὰρ τὸ συνέχον τὴν γῆν, κτλ. 

§ This general reference of δι’ ὧν (comp. εἰς τό of 1 Pet. 2 : 8, p. 119, note *) 
I prefer to any of the numerous other explanations that have been proposed; (see 
Revision.) Of these the best is that which make sédarco and τῷ τοῦ ϑεοὺ λόγῳ 
the antecedents, (Besser, Huther, Briickner, Wiesinger.) 

|| CEcumenius restricts κόσμος to the living creatures then on the earth; and so 
Fronmiiller. 


Lecture XI V—Chapter 3 : 5-9. 497 


through all changes, however violent and however extensive, 
the word of God remains unchanged. To-day it holds the 
same sovereign sway over the creatures that it held in the days 
before the flood. What is there, then, so strange and incre- 
dible in the assertion, that a catastrophe, similar and yet dif- 
ferent and more appalling, awaits the world with which we 
have to do? That catastrophe is described first generally in 
the 7th verse, and then more in detail in the roth and 12th 
verses. 

‘But the heavens which are now,* and the earth, have by the 
same word’—or, as some read, by His word +—‘ been,’ not dis- 
missed from Divine restraint, to go their own way henceforth 
and for ever, free and independent, or subject only to laws of 
nature—a phrase which, except as an expression of the all- 
upholding as well as all-creating word of God’s power, { may 
be said to represent an inconceivable nonentity—no, not thus 
turned loose in the universe, but ‘ dazd wp i store, retained in 
strictest custody, as it were under lock and key, and that for 
a special ulterior purpose, ‘being reserved, not for a second 
deluge of water, but ‘for fire unto the day of judgment and, 
as must inevitably be the case, ‘destruction of the ungodly men, § 
of such in general, and particularly: of these very scoffers, 
whom, says Bengel, the fire will confute.|| 

That the future judgment, of which that on Sodom and Go- 
morrah was an eminent type, shall be by fire, is a very fre- 
quent intimation of the Scriptures of both Testaments. ‘ Our 
God shall come, sang the Psalmist; ‘a fire shall devour 
before Him.’ And again: ‘A fire goeth before Him, and 
burneth up His enemies round about. ‘ Behold,’ exclaims 


* of δὲ viv οὐραμοὶ καὶ ἢ γῆ. Grammatically viv belongs only to otp., though 
in sense also to γῆ. 

+ For the Recepia, τῷ αὐτῷ λόγῳ, (A Vulgate, Lachmann,) Griesbach, Scholz, 
Tischendorf, Alford read τῷ αὐτοῦ λόγῳ, (Sin. B, C, G, J, Syriac.) 

Peblebs τ Ὁ: 

§ τεϑησαυρισμένοι εἰσὶ, (the accomplished, permanent act,) πυρὲ τηρούμενοι (the 
present design of God in that act) εἰς ἡμέραν κρίσεως καὶ ἀπωλεΐας (as in ch. 2 : 1) 
τῶν ἀσεβῶν ἀνθρώπων. Knapp, Meyer, Lachmann, Hahn, Theile, Wiesinger 
connect πυρί with tedyo.,=stored for fire. Peile also prefers this connection, but 
is not sustained by usage in his translation of the phrase, stored with fire. 

|| ‘Ignis confutabit empzectas.’ 


498 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


Isaiah at the close of his prophecies, ‘the Lord will come 
with fire, and with His chariots like a whirlwind, to render 
His anger with fury, and His rebukes with flames of fire. 
For by fire and by His sword will the Lord plead with all 
flesh.” And so in the vision of Daniel: ‘A fiery stream 
issued and came forth from before Him. . . . I beheld, even 
till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to 
the burning flame.’ Not less explicit is the New Testament 
in regard to that day being ‘revealed by fire. Paul, for 
instance, used no rhetorical figure of speech, when he wrote 
to the Thessalonians of ‘the revelation’ of the Lord Jesus 
from heaven, ‘in fire of flame ;” and just as little reason is 
there for so explaining away the solemn statements of our 
present chapter.* Science itself testifies, that there is no 
lack of means already prepared, and adequate to the accom- 
plishment of such a catastrophe. Nor is it unworthy of men- 
tion, as a sort of traditional corroboration, that the idea of the 
world’s ultimate destruction by fire, as well as the ideas of its 
having had its origin in water, and of a former deluge, have 
prevailed very, widely in the poetry, philosophy, and popular 
notions of the heathen. 


Having thus set aside the argument, drawn from the assumed 
stability of the natural order, against the second coming of 
the Lord, the Apostle next takes up the question of its appa- 
rent delay. The promise itself had often been given in terms 
that implied its speedy fulfilment, and the apostolic churches, 
accordingly, were taught to live in continual expectation. 
But as time wore on, and the Lord did not appear, and the 
slumber of the grave was still unbroken, there was danger 
that the faith of some might fail, and the hearts of all be dis- 
couraged. The writer, therefore, deals with this difficulty in 
the way of a direct address to his brethren, and in a spirit of 
great tenderness. 

‘But of this one thing be ye, beloved, not ignorant’—literally, 
Put let not this one thing escape you, beloved t— that one day 15 


* Ps. 50:33 97:3; Is.66: 15, 16,24; Dan.7:9, 10; 1 Cor.3 : 13; 2 Thess. 
1: 8, (Lectures, p. 437, 544.) 
t “Ev δὲ τοῦτο μὴ λανϑανέτω tude, (in emphatic opposition to v. 5,) ἀγαπητοί. 


Lecture XIV —Chapter 3 : 5-9. 499 


with the Lord’ (in the Old Testament sense, as equivalent to 
God) ‘as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 
Differences so minute are not measured on God's dial. The 
thought is borrowed from Psalm 90: 4, ‘For a thousand 
years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past ;’ and 
this is merely strengthened by giving also the converse. 
The immense difference in the Divine estimate of time from 
ours is, then, the first consideration by which the Apostle 
seeks to break the force of the temptation. 

And another is derived from the Lord’s gracious purpose in 
what might seem to our short-sighted impatience to be an un- 
accountable postponement : ‘ Zhe Lord’ (not the Lord Fesus, 
nor yet, as some explain, God the Father, but, as in the previous 
verse, God without regard to the personal distinction) ‘zs 7207 
slack, or tardy, ‘concerning the promise’—that great promise 
with which these mockers make merry—‘ as some,’* some per- 
haps even among yourselves, ‘account slackness, or ‘tardiness.’ ἢ 
They apply their own poor human measures to the Divine 
procedure, and no wonder that they begin to find it slow, 
and possibly even to suspect that the Lord has forgotten His 
word, or has become indifferent to the hopes which it created. 

Thus in their hasty surmisings they miss the true explana- 
tion of the whole matter. ‘ Zhe Lord is not tardy concerning 
the promise’—He is neither oblivious nor unconcerned, nor so 
much as an hour behindhand in the execution of His original 
plan—‘ but zs long-suffering toward us, not willing that any 
should perish, but that all should come to repentance. ere 
some read foward you ; others, oz your account, or for your 
sakes.$ But these variations can scarcely be said to affect 
the great truth taught in these delightful words. That truth, 
however, may be taken in one or other of two ways, both 


* Including Alford and Fronmiiller. 

+ od βραδύνει (occurs again int Tim.3:15. Comp. Wisd. of Sir. 32 : 18) 
ὁ (cancelled by Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford, etc., after Sin., etc.) Κύριος τῆς 
ἐπαγγελίας ὥς τινες βραδυτῆτα (in the New Testament only here) 7yovvtat.—Eras- 
mus made τῆς éxayy. dependent on Κύριος, and this construction has been adop 
ted by several. 

t εἰς ὑμᾶς, (Tischendorf, Alford ;) dv’ ὑμᾶς, (Lachmann, after, Sin. A; Vulgate : 
propter vos.) ὑμᾶς is supported also by B, Ὁ ; and comp. 1 Pet. 1 : 20, 


500 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


equally in accordance with the apostolic spirit, and with the 
general analogy of Scripture. 

In speaking of the Lord’s ‘ long-suffering toward us, the 
writer may have wished to be understood as speaking of 
‘us’ as Christians, or as men. 

In the former case his meaning would be this : ‘ The design 
of God in the present dispensation being to take out of all 
nations a people for His name, the first-fruits unto God and to 
the Lamb, the dispensation must last till that design be fully 
accomplished. All that the Father giveth to the Son shall 
come to Him; and therefore must the opportunity of repent- 
ance be allowed them. But, when the last of these elect ones 
shall have been gathered, and made ready for the coming of 
Christ, that coming will be delayed no longer. Thus, in the 
time of Noah, the day on which ‘all the fountains of the great 
deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened,’ 
was ‘the self-same day’ on which Noah with his family went 
into the ark; a coincidence specially noted by our Lord: 
‘They were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in mar- 
riage, wtzl the day that Noah entered into the ark.’ And just 
so, in the case of the cities of the plain, the Lord, we read, 
‘could not do any thing’ till Lot entered into Zoar. And 
‘then, it is added, the fiery tempest descended.* Now in 
like manner it is a perfectly legitimate interpretation to say, 
that, as the Apostle wrote these words, ‘ Zhe Lord is long- 
suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but 
thai all should come to repentance, he was thinking of that 
Body of Christ which must be completed before it can be 
glorified with its Head; and I have sometimes inclined to 
believe that that is what he really meant. 

But, as was said before, the more general reference is no 
less allowable, and then the text affords a New Testament coun- 
terpart to those words in Ezekiel (18 : 23; 33: 11): ‘ Have 
I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? and not that 
he should return from his ways, and live? ... As I live, 
saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the 


* Acts 15:14; Rev. 14:4; John6:37; Gen. 7:11, 13; Matt. 24:38; 
19 : 22-24. 


Lecture XIV—Chapter 3 : 5-9. SOI 


wicked ; but that the wicked turn from his way and live.’ Or 
the writer may have had in his eye 1 Timothy 2 : 3, 4, where 
Paul declares that ‘God our Saviour will have all men to be 
saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.’ 

Of course, these and many other such passages that might 
be quoted have nothing whatever to do with the efficient will 
—the irresistible decree—of Him who is Almighty ; and the 
proof of this lies in the fact that ‘the vast majority of the 
wicked do not turn from their evil ways, do not come to re- 
pentance and the knowledge of the truth, are not saved. In 
what sense, then, is the opposite the will.of God? In the 
same sense in which the ten commandments are the will of 
God. They proclaim what is agreeable to the holiness and 
benevolence of His nature, and what is therefore ‘ good and 
acceptable in His sight.’* But as this will of God does by 
no means secure the moral perfection of all men, so as little 
does it secure their universal salvation. And the explanation 
is the same in both cases; not the weakness of God, nor the 
insincerity of His word, but the frailty and ungodliness of the 
sinner. 


1. Learn, then, from these verses, in the first place, the 
necessity of repentance—of a thorough, gracious change in 
men’s natural way of thinking and feeling in regard to God 
and themselves and their own highest interests—if they would 
escape the impending ruin. 

2. In the second place, beware of being lulled into security 
by the riches of God’s present ‘ goodness and forbearance and 
long-suffering.’ Know that this ‘goodness of God leadeth 
thee to repentance,’ and that, if the merciful purpose -be 
despised and thwarted, the end can only be an accumulated 
treasure of wrath in ‘the day of wrath and revelation of the 
righteous judgment of God.’ A more terrible doom even now 
awaits the impenitent than that which overtook the men of 
Noah’s days, ‘ which were cut down out of time, whose foun- 
dation was overflown with a flood: which said unto God, 
Depart from us; and what can the Almighty do to them?’ 


Ἔ by ΤΠ 2: 2: 


502 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


Oh! that the instant and repeated warning, that came from 
the lips of the compassionate Son of God, our Saviour, were 


heeded by all who hear it: ‘Except ye repent, ye shall all. 


likewise perish.’ Surely if any of us are ignorant of these 
things, it is because we at least are ‘ wilfully ignorant.’ * 

3. In the third place, shun the snare of the scoffers, and 
think not that, because the-sun continues to rise on the evil 
and on the good, and the rain to descend on the just and on the 


unjust,f therefore the threatenings any more than the promises _ 


of God shall remain for ever in abeyance. ‘We now see,’ 


says Calvin on this passage, ‘how greatly they err who stop- 


at the bare elements of matter, as if in them perpetuity inher- 
ed, and they were not rather by their very nature subject to the 
will of God. In these few words there is an ample refutation 
of the insolence of those who, to attack God, arm themselves 
with physical considerations. .. . Very many such we see 
nowadays, who, having got a slight smattering of the rudiments 
of philosophy, by way of passing themselves off as great phi- 
losophers, go hunting merely after profane speculations.’ t 
What a picture of very many also in our own times ! 

4. Finally, let those of us who ‘are Christ’s’ hold fast, not 
only in our creed, but in the habitual exercises of our faith 
and hope, the promise of our Lord’s return. ‘For the vision 
is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and 
not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely 
come, it will not tarry.’ Or, as the assurance is renewed to 
us in the New Testament: ‘ Yet a little while, and He that 
shall come will come, and will not tarry.’ 

‘Surely I come quickly. Amen; come, Lord Jesus.’ 8 


PROM 2.5.2. τὶς ΠΟ. 22 εἰ ΤΟΣ ye mlb ΚΕ ΤΆ 2.5. 

+t Matt. 5 : 45. 

t ‘Nunc videmus quantopere errent qui subsistunt in nudis elementis, quasi 
in ipsis sita esset perpetuitas, ac non potius ad Dei nutum flexibilis esset eorum 
natura. His paucis verbis abunde refutatur eorum petulantia qui ad Deum op- 
pugnandum physicis rationibus se armant. .. . Quales hodie videmus permultos, 
qui leviter aspersi philosophiz rudimentis, quo se pro magnis philosophis ven- 
ditent, tantum profanas speculationes venantur.’ 

δ ΘΟ: 22; ἘΠ), 2.3. ἘΠῈΡ. 10. 27; "Rev. 22): 20, 


/ 


ΤΟ ΤΟΙ =N1- 


2 PETER 3°: 10-13. 


‘But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night ; in the which the 
heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fer- 
vent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. 
Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons 
ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting 
unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be 
dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, 
according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwell- 
eth righteousness.’ 


To the preceding confutation of those, who at the end of 
the days should be found deriding the ancient hope of the 
Church respecting the Lord’s return in ‘power and great 
glory, * the Apostle now adds his own positive testimony to 
the certainty, the manner, and the consequences, of the com- 
ing of that day of the Lord which the event in question should 
introduce, and he at the same time points out the practical 
bearing of this truth on the life of Christians. 


I. First, the certainty: ‘ But’—notwithstanding the taunts 
of these ignorant and contemptuous gainsayers, and however 
protracted may be the interval, (vv. 3-8)—‘ the} day of the 
Lord will come?’ Or the connection may rather be with v. 9: 
‘ But’—let none presume on the delay vouchsafed to men by 
the Divine long-suffering, as if it were going to last for ever— 
‘the day of the Lord will come. 

This ‘day of the Lord, t or ‘day of God, (v. 12,) is none 


* Matt. 24 : 30. + Lachmann and Tischendorf omit 7, after B, Ὁ. 
t So 2 Thess. 2: 2, (according to the better reading.) Comp. Joel 1:15; 
PUB Ἐν Ὁ 15. AE SIS Ais G8 Oh 


> 


504 Lectures on the, Second Epistle of Peter. 


other than the ‘day in the which God will judge the world in 
righteousness by that Man whom He hath ordained,’ and is 
therefore also known in Scripture as ‘the day of the Lord 
Jesus’—the day of God in Christ.* 

At present Satan, as the god of this world, has his day, and 
man has his, the Supreme Being meanwhile having seemingly 
withdrawn from the supervision and control of human affairs. 
At least, His enemies bear themselves as if He really had 
done so. But in ‘the day of the Lord’ the Lord alone shall 
be exalted. The Lord God Almighty will take to Him His 
great power and reign. The glory of the Lord shall be re- 
vealed, and all flesh shall see it together. At the name of 
Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and things 
in earth, and things under the earth, and every tongue shall 
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the 
Father. And when this day reaches its noontide, in what 
our Apostle calls ‘the day of eternity,’ then too shall the 
creation attain to the zenith of faith’s brightest anticipations, 
and God shall be all in 411. 

For it can scarcely be necessary to caution you against the 
absurdity of taking ‘the day of the Lord’ to be a day of 
twelve hours, or of twenty-four hours. It is, on the contrary, 
the most glorious and lasting of all the Divine economies—a 
day which shall have no night, and will be followed by no to- 
morrow. Its dawn is at the appearing of Christ the second 
time without sin unto salvation, and its forenoon hours extend 
through the long ages of the apocalyptic millennium and medi- 
atorial reign, whose termination is signalized by the instanta- 
neous suppression of the last desperate outbreak of evil, the 
second resurrection, and the closing acts of judgment.t 

Now, says Peter, ‘ the day of the Lord’—a phrase first used 
by Joel (1 : 15; 2: 1; 3 : 14) eight centuries before—so 
long promised, so long expected, and, as you thought, so oft 
deferred, ‘ w7// come, will arrive§ at last; nor will the indif- 


* Acts 17:31; 2Cor.1:14. Seep. 499. 

+ 2Cor. 4:4; Luke 22: 53; Rev. 12: 12; 1 Cor. 4: 3, (see the Greek :) Is. 
2:11340:5; Rev.11:17; Phil. 2: 10,11; 1 Cor. 15 : 28; 2 Pet. 3 : 18, {5 
ραν αἰῶνος.) 

t+ Heb. 9 : 28; Rev. 20: 4, 8ὅ-1|5. § ἥξει. 


Lecture XV.— Chapter 3 : 10-13. 505 


ference of the world, or the slumbers of the Church, or the . 
jeers of scoffers, hinder its coming. Whatever else in the 
future is uncertain, this is sure and inevitable. And what is 
there in our poor speculations about the future, or in the 
deepest and most far-reaching schemes of statesmen, or in 
the glowing visions of patriotism, that will bear comparison 
with this? All these may again, as they so often have in 
times past, disappoint the confident hopes of men; and still 
it remains firm as the decree, true as the oath of God, that 
‘the day of the Lord will come.’ 


II. And how will it come? That was our second point: 
the manner of the coming or arrival of the day of the Lord. 
It will come, says our text, ‘as a thief in thenight, or simply 
‘as a thief ;’ the words, zz the night,* being wanting in the 
best manuscripts, and probably introduced into others from 
1 ΠΕ NE a 2: 

This figure of the thief is the one that oftenest occurs in 
the scriptural illustration of this solemn theme.f And the 
ideas most readily suggested by it are unexpectedness, sur- 
prise, hostility, loss. But it is evident that to the faithful, 
longing children of God the great crisis will wear no such as- 
pect. ‘Ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should 
overtake you as athief” To them it will come as the day of their 
redemption— ‘as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth’ 
—no dread, unforeseen catastrophe, but the joyous fulfilling 
of the desires and prayers of the weary night-watchers.{ And 
it is also true that in the heavens and on the earth and sea 
there will be signs of the coming doom, numerous enough 
and portentous enough, it might be supposed, to arrest the 
attention df all. But even these will be overlooked or mis- 
interpreted by a giddy, reckless, self-confident generation. 
‘The wicked shall do wickedly ; and none of the wicked shalk 
understand.’§ And so the great day w7// arrive—will have 


* Almost all the critical editors cancel ἐν νυκτί, after Sin. A, B, Vulgate, etc. 

+ Matt. 24 : 42-44; Mark 13 : 34, 35; Luke 12:39; 1 Thess. 5 : 2-4; Rev. 
2.5. (0). Bails 

‘{ Luke 21 : 28; 2 Sam. 23:4. Comp. Ps. 30:5; 130:6; Acts 27 : 20. 

§ Dan. 12: I0. 


506 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


set in—will be actually upon men—ere ever they are aware 
of its presence; and its first acts of judgment, in the resur- 
rection of the holy dead, and the change of the living saints, 
and the simultaneous ascent of the gathered multitude into 
the descending cloud of Christ’s glory, may all pass without 
creating so much as an eddy or aripple in the rushing streams 
of ungodliness. But very soon these streams will have a sud- 
den arrest laid on them. The lightning of God will flash on 
the tottering pillars of the world, startling sinners from their 
vain dreams, only to know that their house has been broken 
into, and to realize the greatness and remedilessness of their 
loss. And then will the cry of their horror and despair mingle 
with the roar of the passing heavens and the kindled earth.* 


III. For consider, in the third place, ¢he consequences of the 
coming of the day of the Lord. 

Some of these consequences have already been mentioned 
incidentally, to which, as well as to others clearly enough in- 
dicated elsewhere, there is no reference whatever in the pas- 
sage before us. For example, it is, I think, demonstrable 
that among the many glories that go tg make up the bright- 
ness of the future age subsequent to the Lord’s second ad- 
vent, is the glory of the restored Israel and of ‘ Jerusalem, 
the city of the Great King.’ t But Peter here says not a 
word about that, any more than about the resurrection of the 
dead. Having still in mind the argument of the scoffers from ἡ 
the asserted durability of the present cosmical arrangements, 
he mainly limits his view to the change that is to pass over 
the material creation, when it too ‘shall be delivered from the 
bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of 
God.’ ἢ ; 

Another point of no less importance, and the failure to ob- 
serve which has, perhaps more than any thing else, given rise 
to endless mistakes and difficulties, is this, that, in describing 
the transformation of the present into the future world, the 
writer does not allow himself to dwell on the steps of the pro- 


* Comp. Lect. on Thess. p. 274, 5464. Tt Matt. 5 : 35. 1 Rom. ὃ : 21. 


Lecture XV.—Chapter 3 : 10-13. 507 


cess—the stages, so to speak, of the transition—but takes in 
the whole work at one glance, and as consummated in the 
one day of the Lord. This, indeed, is well known to be the 
prophetic style, as when the Old Testament throughout de- 
picts the times of Messiah in such a way as to leave scarcely 
visible the interval between His first and second comings— 
between the cross and the throne. Nor does the specifica- 
tion of the six days’ work of creation in the first chapter of Gen- 
esis hinder even the inspired historian from immediately sum- 
ming up the whole at the beginning of the second chapter 
thus: ‘These are the generations of the heavens and the 
earth when they were created, zz the day that the Lord God 
made the earth and the heavens.’ Only let there be due 
allowance for the operation of this same principle of interpre- 
tation, as we read the statements of Scripture respecting 
things to come, and we shall avoid very many occasions of 
stumbling. 

After all, however, it were utterly foolish and presumptuous 
in us to insist on having these various statements of the num- 
berless details of this wonderful work of God so clearly ex- 
plained to our weakness and ignorance, and so nicely sorted 
and adjusted in their mutual relation, as to leave nothing to 
perplex our apprehension of the infinite theme. And the fol- 
ly and presumption will be no less great, if we think to get rid 
of our perplexities by either ignoring or wresting any plain de- 
claration of the sacred word. Let us do our best, and there 
will still remain difficulties for us in connection with this and 
every other Divine operation—difficulties which the day it- 
self must solve. As it is only ‘through faith’ that ‘we un- 
derstand. tlfat the worlds were framed by the word of God,’ * 
so it would be strange indeed, if, in contemplating through 
the glass of prophecy the emergence of the new creation 
from the ruin that sin has wrought, there were found no 
room for the exercise of the same gracious spirit. 

Taking with us, therefore, these few preliminary cautions, 
let us briefly review the announcements of our text. 


ES Is§Soy il Sh 


508 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


‘The heavens shall pass away with a great, or rushing,* 
‘noise ;’ certainly not the heaven in which God and the 
angels dwell. Nor is it necessary to include in the meaning 
of the word even the starry heavens. Throughout this whole 
context (vs. 5, 7, 12, 13) it seems evidently to denote merely 
the heavens belonging immediately to our earth—the firma- 
ment of Genesis I :6-8—the atmosphere—the domain of 
the clouds, and birds, and, as Scripture intimates more than 
once, f’of the evil spirits. Having shared in the defilement of 
sin, ‘the heavens’ also shall undergo the purification of fire. 
‘They shall be changed’ {—‘ shall pass away with a rushing 
noise, as of whirlwinds, or, some would say, as of a house 
falling into ruins, § and that amidst crackling flames. ||—In v. 
12 it is said that dy reason of the day of God, or 22 conse- 
quence of its coming,** ‘the heavens being on fire shall be dis- 
solved’—loosened, as it were, from their present attachments 
and sent adrift, or dissolved internally, like any other fuel of 
fire. But let us not think of introducing into this descrip- 
tion, as has sometimes been done,ff the ideas and conclusions 
of our modern chemical analysis, by way of helping us to ac- 
count for either the sights or the sounds of this appalling 
scene. The Apostle is not at all concerned about the scien- 
tific exactness or possibilities, but, in aiming at a religious im- 
pression on the hearts of his readers, uses popular language 
to describe phenomena, as they shall hereafter impress them- 
selves on the senses of men. Accordingly, the same word, 
that is used of the heavens in v. 12, is in the next clause of 
v. 10 used of the elements : 

‘ But the elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat ;’ where- 
as in v. 12 again the corresponding clause reads, ‘And the ele- 
ments melt with fervent heat’t% Nor can I think it worth while 


* ῥοιζηδόν---ἶτι the New Testament only here.—Sin. ἐν ἡ οὐρανοὶ μὲν ῥυζηδόν. 

+ Eph, 2:2; 6:12. Comp. Luke 10: 18. 

ἜΘ. ΤΟΣ 20: ΕΠ ΕΠ; 1 : 12. § De Wette. || Huther. 
** §v jv—which many refer to παρουσίαν. tt See Clarke’s Commentary. 

Ἡ V. 10: στοιχεῖα δὲ καυσούμενα (only here and vy. 12) λυϑήσονται (Lachmann : 
λυϑήσεται, Sin. B, C)—v. 12: καὶ στοιχεῖα καυσούμενα τήκεται, (only here. Lach- 
mann follows the reading τακήσεται of C and the Vulgate. Comp. the Sept. Is. 
34:4 and Mic. I : 4.) 


Lecture XV—Chapter 3 : 10-13. 509 


to refine as to the precise import in either place. In v. 10 some 
connect the clause especially with what precedes respecting 
the heavens,* others with what follows respecting the earth ; + 
and the word elements has been variously referred to the sun, 
moon, and stars {—an idea altogether foreign to the scope of 
the passage—to the four elements of the ancient philosophy, 
fire, air, earth, water $—to two or three of the number ||—and 
even to the constituent parts of water alone.** But all such 
strictness of definition is probably beside the mark. The 
clause is best taken generally, as including whatever comes 
under the power of this great conflagration ; and the elements 
will be, according to the popular sense of the term both in 
Greek and English, the smaller parts that go to make up the 
whole. 

It is then added by way of climax, as that which comes 
most nearly home to our human feelings, ‘and the earth and 
the works therein’ ++—whether of nature or of art ti—‘ shall be 
burned up: $$ The clause is so framed as to suggest at once 
the universality and the particularity of the judgment—its 
minutely searching as well as its far-reaching operation. In 
the language of Isaiah (2 : 12-17): ‘The day of the Lord of 
hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and 
upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought 
low: and upon all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and 
lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan, and upon all the 
high mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted up, and 
upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall, and upon 
all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures. 
And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the 
haughtiness of men shall be made low; and the Lord alone 
shall be exalted in that day.’ 


* Fluther, Besser. 7 Fronmiiller. 
1 Bengel, Dietlein, (but not exclusively.) § Bede. 
|| Horneius : air, earth, water ; Estius, Calov: air, water. 
** Clarke : hydrogen and oxygen! ; 
tt τὰ ἐν αὐτῇ ἔργα. 
tt Βεηρεὶ : ‘naturze et artis.’ 
§§ κατακαήσεται ; for which Sin. and B, and some cursive MSS. give the unin- 
telligible reading, εὑρεϑήσεται ; C, ἀφανισϑήσεται. 


510 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


Such, then, are some of the terrible results of the coming 
of the day of God. 


And now you may well ask, in reference even to this fair 
visible frame-work of creation: But is that all? And is this 
indeed, in the words of the dying statesman,* ‘the last of 
earth’?—of that earth which God made in the beginning 
‘very good ’—from which in every age have ascended to His 
throne the prayers and thanksgivings of believing souls—the 
birthplace and the grave of His own Incarnate Son? Is it, 
after all—yea, though it has been baptized with the Saviour’s 
most precious blood—to be reduced to perpetual ashes, or an 
everlasting chaos, if not perchance put out of existence alto- 
gether? And will not such an issue be the triumph of Satan 
the Destroyer, rather than of Christ the Redeemer ? 

It cannot be denied that just such wild notions as these » 
have long been floating, for want of better, in the common 
mind of Christendom, and that in some quarters the Church 
is still taught to anticipate, as a matter of praise, the time 
when ‘the universe shall burn, and God shall destroy His 
own works,’ instead of those of the devil.t But for the too 
general prevalence of this woful chimera Shakespeare, as I 
have elsewhere remarked,t may be largely responsible, not 
Scripture : 


‘ And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, 
The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
The solemn temples, the great globe itself, 
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, 

And, like the insubstantial pageant faded, 
Leave not a rack behind.’ 


That, no doubt, is fine poetry, but it is neither good philoso- 
phy nor Bible doctrine. The idea of the future annihilation, 
or eternal desolation, of this world of ours, has absolutely 
nothing to sustain it in the analogies of nature, the deduc- 
tions of science, or the teachings of Scripture. 


* John Quincy Adams. 

+ Comp. the otherwise excellent hymn, ‘ Daughter of Zion, from the dust,’ etc., 
with 1 John 3: 8. 

t Perpetuity of the Earth, p. 191. To this little volume the reader is referred 
for a fuller statement of the scriptural argument. 


Lecture XV.—Chapter 3 : 10-13. 511 


What! some one of course will say, does not your text ex- 
pressly assert that the heavens shall pass away, and the earth 
be burned up? Yes, I answer, and it likewise asserts ex- 
pressly: ‘ Nevertheless we’—or simply, But*—‘ according to 
flis promise, we’—we Christians—‘ look for new heavens and 
a new carth, + wherein righteousness dwelleth ,’ dwelleth being 
the last word, and emphatic: dwelleth, as in her own secure 
and eternal home. | 

Now there surely can be no good reason for supposing that 
God will make this new creation out of nothing, when here are 
the materials of the old creation ready to His hands. Orif you 
still ask me to reconcile this passing away of the old into the 
new with the Apostle’s strong word, shall be burned up, 1 
think it sufficient to point you back to the 6th and 7th verses, 
which declare that the ancient world, the original heavens and 
earth, ‘perished, was destroyed—quite as strong a word—in 
the deluge, and then reappeared in its existing form, as ‘the 
heavens and the earth which are now;’ the days of Noah 
thus furnishing the most signal example and type, not only 
of the judgment, but also of the salvation, of God. 

We have, however, says Peter, for the foundation of our 
hope, something more direct and explicit than types and in- 
ferences. We have a Divine ‘promise’? And had he been 
asked, Where? he might no doubt have repeated what he 
once declared in his preaching, that ‘by the mouth of all His 
holy prophets since the world began hath God spoken of’ these 
coming ‘times of the restitution of all things.’ But it is 
generally agreed that, in speaking of this restitution under 
the name of ‘new heavens and a new earth, he has an im- 
mediate reference to Isaiah 65:17 (comp. 66:22; Rev. 
21:1): ‘For, behold, I create new heavens and a new 
‘earth: and the former shall not be rememberéd, nor come 
into mind.’ ; 

If, therefore, you would have a glimpse of that future world 
as it was shown to Isaiah, you have but to examine the de- 


* δέ. T Sin. καινὴν γῆν, instead of γῆν καινήν. 
$ Acts 3 : 21.—Indeed, the reading of Sin. A, and the Vulgate, which Lach- 
mann follows, is τὰ ἐπαγγέλματα, promises. 


512 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


scription given of it by God Himself in the very passage that 
Peter had in his eye, when he wrote the words before us ; and 
be not hastily offended, if you find there things that surprise 
you: ‘For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: 
and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. 
But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create ; for, 
behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. 
And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the 
voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice 
of crying. There shall be no more thence an infant of days, 
nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child 
shall die a hundred years old; but the sinner being a hundred 
years old shall be accursed. And they shall build houses, and 
inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the 
fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit ; they 
shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are 
the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the 
work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain, nor bring 
forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the 
Lord, and their offspring with them. And it shall come to 
pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are 
yet speaking, I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed 
together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and 
dust shall be the serpent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor 
destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord,’ ἢ 

You at once perceive that, while there are great changes here 
foretold in the present condition of things, the features of re- 
semblance also are numerous and striking ; just as the ark of 
Noah carried over into the world that followed the flood very 
much that belonged to the world that preceded it, and even 
the returning dove bore ‘in her mouth an olive leaf plucked 
off, ἡ and wet with the waters of judgment. In like manner, 
taking Isaiah and Peter together, I see not how the conclu- 
sion can be evaded, that in that world for which we are still 
looking, after the coming of the day of God, after the confla- 
gration, and after the Church of the resurrection and the 
translation—the Church of the first-born—the first-fruits unto 


* Ts, 65 : 17-25. t Gen. 8: 11. 


Lecture XV.—Chapter 3 : 10-13. 5a 


God and the Lamb—has been received into the undefiled and 
unchanging glory of the new heavens, there will be continued 
on the new earth successive generations of men in the flesh, 
under conditions of most blessed amelioration both physical 
and moral, and absolutely secured throughout the long mil- 
lennial age against the wiles and assaults of Satan,* but not 
yet made perfect, nor free from all attaint of sjn and death. 

This much is so plainly revealed, that we are not to be de- 
terred from believing it by the difficulty, were it ever so great, 
of explaining in what way the race shall be enabled to survive 
the conflagration. But that difficulty really loses its force, as 
soon as you make proper allowance for possible exaggeration 
in our conceptions of the extent and effects of the fiery trial,t 
which many indeed suppose will reach no further, in the first 
instance at least, than to what is called the prophetic earth, 
or the territory of Christendom, and the four great Empires 
of Daniel’s visions. Then remember what has already been 
said of the duration and stages of this judgment—of the sev- 
eral hours of this great day of the Lord—and it is nothing at 
allto be wondered at, if its rising be attended by mists of the 
morning, which shall disappear in the splendor of its meridian. 
But if any shall still judge that these two considerations do 
not fully meet all the necessities of the case, we can then fall 
back on the principle, so largely illustrated by our Apostle in 
the second chapter, that ‘the Lord’ who saved Noah with his 
household from the ruins of the old world, and Lot from the 
flames of Sodom, and, we may add, the three young faithful 
Hebrews from Nebuchadnezzar’s burning fiery furnace, though 
heated one seven times more than it was wont to be heated, 
‘knoweth how’ to make good, and to reconcile, all His words, 
both of warning and of promise. 


‘IV. A few words in conclusion on the practical inference 
drawn from the solemn prospect thus opened up to the faith 
of the Church: ‘Seeing ¢hen that all these things shall be dis- 


* Rev. 20 : I-3. 

+ The reader will do well to compare such passages as Is. 13 : 9-13 and 
24 : 6, 19-23, where language equally strong is seen to be reconcilable with the 
continuance of the earth, and of men upon it. 


514 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


solved’—rit is even more emphatic in the original: S7zvce, then, 
all these things are dissolving ;* their doom being even now 
written on them, and working in them—‘ what manner of per- 
sons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, lite- 
rally, 2 holy behaviors and pieties; + ‘looking for and hasting 
unto the coming’—or rather, as in the margin, hasting the 
comingt— of the day of God. 

That ‘the fashion of this world passeth away ’—that, like 
the body of man, this world in all its present arrangements 
and interests, is ‘dead because of sin,’ and must pass through 
dissolution into regeneration and a higher form of existence 
—is reason enough in the apostolic estimation why we should 
not be conformed to its evil ways, nor seek to make it our 
portion and our rest. Having here ‘no continuing city,’ let 
us cherish and manifest the spirit of ‘strangers and pilgrims,’ 
and in our relations both to men and to God be governed by 
the law of our heavenly citizenship. Observe that the habit- 
ual expectation of ‘the coming of the day of God’ is urged by 
Peter upon his brethren as being at once a characteristic 
mark of the true Christian, and itself a most powerful motive 
to universal holiness. And so it is everywhere represented 
throughout the New Testament; as where Paul takes it for 
granted that, if we are to be proficients in the school of the 
Divine grace, ‘living soberly, and righteously, and godly, in 
this present world,’ we shall be found ‘looking for the blessed 
hope, and the appearing of the glory of our great God and 
Saviour Jesus Christ.’ Peter’s language even goes beyond 
that. He is not satisfied that we maintain, in regard to that 
day, the attitude merely of a passive expectancy... Our whole 
Christian life should be a distinct, direct effort to ‘prepare the 
way of the Lord,’ and so to Aasten His coming. This glorious 


* τούτων οὖν πάντων λυομένων, For οὖν, Tischendorf and Alford read οὕτως; 
(B, C—the latter, δὲ οὕτως.) 

{ Alford’s rendering of ἐν ἁγίαις ἀναστροφαῖς καὶ εὐσεβείαις. Comp. ch. 2:2; 
I Pet. 1:15;2:1. Huther and Alford connect these words with the next verse. 
But the common arrangement is to be preferred.—Sin.? has ἡμᾶς, instead of ὑμᾶς, 
after δεῖ ὑπάρχειν. 

t σπεύδοντας τὴν παρουσίαν. The marginal rendering is generally preferred by 
the best interpreters from Erasmus to Wordsworth.—Sin./ omitted the words, 
Kal σπεύδ, 


Lecture XV—Chapter 3): 10-13. 515 


consummation we can, and ever ought to, actively promote, 
by hastening the work of our own preparation, by the energy 
of prayer, and by the strenuous use of the appointed means for 
the speedy accomplishment of the number of God's elect.* 


* eCori ἡ + 215 (1 John. 2i+ 175) Ἰλοτ ὁ 103) Heb. 13.5143. 1 Pet. 2 2.11 ; 
Phil: 3): 20; Tit, 2 27241315 Μαΐ. 737) Kev..19 : 73) Eukers : 7, ὃ; 2 Pet. 
3:9; Matt. 24:14; Rev. 14: 6, 7. ᾿ 


LECTORE AVE 


2 PETER 3: 14-18. 


‘ WHEREFORE, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye 
may be found of Him in peace, without spot, and blameless. And account that 
the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation ; even as our beloved brother Paul also 
according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; as also in all his 
epistles, speaking in them of these things ; in which are some things hard to be 
understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also 
the other scriptures, unto their own destruction. Ye therefore, beloved, seeing 
ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error 
of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. But grow in grace, and in the 
knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both now 
and for ever. Amen.’ 


In the 11th verse the impending dissolution of the world 
that now is had been urged as a motive to a pure and godly 
life. Here in the r4th verse it is rather the prospect of the 
new world that shall follow, that is employed for the same 
purpose: ‘Wherefore, beloved’—dear fellow-heirs of the coming 
clory—‘ looking for these things’ *—this is explanatory of the 
wherefore— be diligent, even as I am on your behalf, (ch. 1 : 
12, 15,) ‘ that, spotless and blameless’—unlike those ‘spots and 
blemishes’ which now mar the beauty of your Christian fellow- 
ship, but, on the contrary, conformed to our Lord Himself, 
the ‘faultless and spotless’ Lamb of God—‘ ye may be found 
of Him in peace’ +—breathing the atmosphere of peace, the 
peace which He left with us at His departure, and which ever 
dwells with holiness. The new heavens and the new earth, 


* ταῦτα προσδοκῶντες. Comp. v. 17. 
+ ἄσπιλοι καὶ ἀμώμητοι (comp. ch. 2: 13 and 1 Pet. 1:19) αὐτῷ εὑρεϑῆν αἱ 
(comp. 2 Cor. 12: 20; 1 Pet. 1:73 2: 22) ἐν εἰρήνῃ. 


Lecture X VI—Chapter 3 : 14-18. 517 


which you are expecting, are to be the abode of righteousness. 
Let, then, the preparatory renovation, begun even now in 
yourselves, be perfected unto the day of Christ. Before the 
foundation of the world ye were chosen of God for this very 
end. For this end Christ gave Himself for the Church, ‘that 
He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having 
spot or wrinkle, or any such thing ; but that it should be holy © 
and without blemish. For this end are appointed all minis- 

. tries and ordinances ; and, as it is the one grand aim of our 

continual labors and prayers, let it be no less so of your own. 

‘ Found of Him, and adjudged by Him, at His appearing, thus 

‘ spotless and blameless, you will be ‘found of Him in peace’— 

the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keeping 

your hearts and minds; and to that peace His coming will 

bring no alarm, but will set the seal of eternity. * 

‘And’ meanwhile, the Apostle goes on to say, it will help 
to stimulate you in this work of preparation, if you bear in 
mind what I have already said of the reason why that coming 
is seemingly delayed. It is not forgetfulness of His promise, 
or any change of purpose. It is not indifference either to the 
jeering profanity of His enemies, or to the sorrows and prayers 
of them that love Him. No; call it rather His long-suffering ; 
and ‘ the long-suffering of our Lord’—here, I think, our Lord 
Jesus Christ, whose person as the Judge of all had been sug- 
gested by the words immediately preceding—‘ account salva- 
tion. | For so it is in the intention of the Divine mercy ; 
mercy, not only to perishing sinners, that space may be allowed 
them for repentance, and that they may thus escape the com- 
ing wrath, but mercy also to you ‘who have fled for refuge to 
lay hold upon the hope set before’ you, that you too may have 
time to bring forth ‘ fruit unto holiness,’ and so ‘make your 
calling and election sure.’ + 

And then comes that interesting appeal for confirmation 
of these apostolic counsels to the recorded testimony of the 


J ROM One aw ἘΠ. Δ: 5,127; (ὉΪ 1 522} 4 11 ΠΥ} ΤΟ ness. 2: 10. 
12.; 2. Bhess. 5: 25,» 81}. τι 

{ καὶ τὴν τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν μακροϑυμίαν, σωτηρίαν ἡγεῖσϑε. 

Φ ΞΡ; 61: τ; kom.) 6: 22: hb etre TO: 


518 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


great Apostle of the Gentiles. Throughout these Epistles, 
as we have had repeated occasion to remark, and particularly 
at the close also of the First Epistle,* the writer appears even 
solicitous to show that the spirit of personal partisanship, 
which so early manifested itself in the churches, had not in 
the least degree affected his own personal relations to Paul, 
or to the Gospel as preached by Paul. But of all these refer- 
ences the most striking is the one now before us: ‘ Even as 
alsot our beloved brother Paul’—brother in the apostleship as 
well as in the faith of Christ, and a brother none the less be- 
loved because of the faithful rebuke I myself once received 
from him—‘ according to the wisdom’—the preéminent mea- 
sure of wisdom—‘ given unto him’ t—for, indeed, none of us 
has aught of his own to boast of ‘in things pertaining to God,’§ 
and no one is more ready than he to acknowledge that all the 
service he is able to render in the establishment of the Church 
is ‘according to the grace of God which is given unto him, as 
a wise master-builder’ ||—‘ zwrote** nto you. ' 
Opinions differ as to which of Paul’s Epistles is meant, 
being influenced chiefly by the view taken of the parties to 
whom Peter wrote, and of the subject of reference. Some,f} 
under the erroneous idea that those to whom our Epistle was 
addressed, were principally Jews, think of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews, and of those passages in it which speak of the 
Lord’s coming and of the day approaching. Others, on the 
ground that every Epistle, to whomsoever addressed, was 
really intended for all Christians, name the Epistle to the 
Romans, which in two places especially treats of the Divine 
long-suffering,{¢ or of the Epistles to the Thessalonians, in 
which the doctrine of the last things has peculiar prominence.§§ 
I should rather say that the general exhortation of the 14th 
verse, to which the first clause of the 15th is merely subsidi- 


US CClOnMUbeH ly: 12,0255 Ὁ: 12: 2 ἜΘ 1: le: ἱ καϑὼς καὶ. 

t For αὐτῷ dodeicav, Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Alford read do’. αὐτῷ, (Sin. 
A, B, C.) 

δ᾽ ἜΠΟΣ ΠῚ ΟΣ 2 : το: ** ἔγραψεν. 

tt Gerhard, Estius, Bengel, etc.—Heb. 9 : 27, 28; 10: 25, 37. 

t{ C&cumenius, Grotius, Dietlein, etc.—Rom. 2 : 4; 9 : 22, 23. 

§§ De Wette, Alford. 


Lecture XVI—Chapter 3 : 14-18. 519 


ary, that the brethren should be ever striving after perfection, 
is that in support of which the appeal is made to the authority 
of Paul, and that the allusion is to some one Epistle sent by 
him to the believers of Asia Minor—perhaps the Epistle to 
the Ephesians,* whichis supposed to have been intended for 
the churches generally of that region, or there is no reason 
why we might not take along with that the Epistles to the 
Galatians and the Colossians. Certainly all three contain 
abundant evidence of the writer’s zeal for the sanctification of 
Christ’s professed followers. 

This is, however, not a characteristic of those three Epistles 
only ; and therefore it is added, ‘as also in all the Epistles’ — 
or, as some, zz all Epistles t—‘ speaking in them of these 
things. What things? Here again the reference may be re- 
stricted to the 14th and 15th verses ;§ or extended to what 
is said in this third chapter in regard to the close of this dis- 
pensation ;|| or it may embrace all the topics of apostolic 
exposition and exhortation throughout the Epistle, or both the 
Epistles.** And this view I prefer as better accounting for 
the mention of a// Paul’s Epistles, as well as for what follows: 
‘in which’—or rather, among which things as treated by Paul ; 
though some read, zz which Epistles—‘ are some things hard to 
be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as also 
the other Scriptures,unto their own destruction.}+~ Here are 
several points that well deserve to be noticed. 

1. In the first place, there were at that time certain scrip- 
tures or writings well known to Peter and his brethren, of 
which all parties familiarly spoke as the Scriptures, and to 
which they referred as the authoritative standards of religious 
teaching. 


* Wiesinger. 

{ There is little probability in Fronmiiller’s suggestion of Ephesians, Colos- 
sians, and Hebrews. 

t ταῖς ἐπιστολαῖς. The article is dropped by Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Al- 
ford, after A, B, C. 

§ Bloomfield, Wiesinger, etc. || Burkitt, Bengel, De Wette, etc. 
** Dietl., Besser, Barnes, etc. 

tt ἐν οἷς (Lachmann and Wordsworth: αἷς, for which Wiesinger also contends ; 
—Sin. A, B, Syriac) ἐστε δυσνόητά (only here) τίνα, ἃ of ἀμαϑεῖς (only here) καὶ 
ἀστήρικτοι στρεβλοῦσιν, (only here,) ὡς καὶ τὰς λοιπὰς γραφὰς. 


520 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


2. Secondly, Paul’s Epistles were already recognized as be- 
longing to those Scriptures. 

3. Thirdly, these Epistles contain things which even the 
prince of the Apostles regarded as ‘hard to be understood ;’ 
not, however, on account of any peculiarity or defect in Paul’s 
treatment of them, but solely on account of the difficulty of 
the topics themselves. 

4. Fourthly, difficult as these matters were, Peter does not 
speak of them as unintelligible, or unprofitable, or unimpor- 
tant, or as what had better be kept out of the way of com- 
mon people. In this respect the wisdom given both to Paul 
and Peter differed from that of very many worthy persons 
who do zot belong to the Church of Rome, but who would a 
great deal rather not be asked, after all the hard thinking they 
have to do on week-days, to do any more of it on Sunday. 

5. And yet it is only ,too true, in the fifth place, that 
the high themes sometimes handled by Paul, and not they 
alone, but ‘also the other Scriptures’ generally, whether of the 
New Testament or the Old, can be made a bad use of; as 
when Paul’s doctrines of a sinner’s justification by faith with- 
out works, and of the believer’s freedom from the law, were 
perverted to apologies for a sinful life ; or his assertion of the 
Divine sovereignty in human salvation was made to paralyze 
the sense of human responsibility ; or his glowing anticipations 
of the Advent were turned to countenance such delusions as 
that the day of the Lord had come, or that the resurrection 
was past already.* Thus there is no Scripture that may not 
be, we might almost say, that has not been, ‘ wrested’—put 
to the rack, as the word means—tortured from its true and 
salutary sense to a clean contrary and fatal one. This has 
ever been the work of men ‘ z/earned, uninstructed, not in 
human learning, of which they who had most have often been 
the worst errorists, but in the things of God, in the truth as it 
is in Jesus, in the mind of the Spirit—of men consequently 
‘unstable, having no root in the faith and love of God's chil- 
dren, not builded on the Living Stone, drifting without anchor 


* Rom,,,3\:85 6 215, 15309.2 19 3 2 Thess. 2: 2), (see: Lectures etc.) alums 
55: τὸ; 


- 


Lecture X VI—Chapter 3: 14-18. 521 


on the cross currents of speculation. And this evil work they 
prosecute, possibly to the misleading of some, and the trou- 
bling of the Church, but certainly ‘ wzto their own destruction.’ 


In the next two verses we have a final summing up of the 
lessons to be drawn from the whole Epistle. 

‘Do ye therefore, beloved, knowing these things before’ *— 
fully forewarned as you now are with regard to the rise and 
working of these ‘ evil men and seducers’ +—‘ beware lest, car- 
ried away t with the error of the lawless, § hurried off your 
feet, as it were, by a rushing torrent, ‘ye fall from your own 
steadfastness.’ || They must not trust to their present sense of 
steadfastness, as of itself affording security for the future. 
They ‘stood by faith” They were ‘kept by the power of 
God’ itself only ‘through faith ;’ ** and according to their faith 
would be their steadfastness. Against their faith, therefore, 
would be directed the utmost arts and efforts of their enemies ; 
and what was needed on their part was an habitual sense of 
their own weakness and danger, and the spirit of a perpetual 
vigilance. As had been explained to them in the course of 
the Epistle, they must expect to encounter the manifold 
subtleties of error, the allurements of the flesh, the pretensions 
and promises of arrogant apostasy, the reasonings of a spurious 
philosophy, the shafts of a profane wit—all commanded and 
enforced by the example of yielding numbers. How, then, 
could they hope to ‘withstand in the evil day,’ except by 
planting their feet on the Rock, and ‘taking to them the 
whole armor of God,’ that so, ‘having done all,’ they might 
“stand? ὁ 77 

The last verse, then, specifies one essential condition of 
such stability in spiritual things, and that is growth—a truth 
which the writer had sought again and again to impress on 


* προγινώσκοντες. Comp. v. 14. ty 2) 31:12. 
ἔ ovvanaydévtec—as in Gal. 2:13. The also of our English version may have 
been intended as compensation for συν, (Tyndale, Geneva: ‘lest ye be also 


plucked away... and fall,’ etc.) But the arrangement gives an undue emphasis 
to the subject of ἐκπέσητε. 
§ ἀϑέσμων----β in ch. 2: 7. || ornpcyzov—only here. 


ἘΞ Rom: Tis 20. ΤΈΡΟῚΙ - 5: tt Eph. 6 : 13. 


522 Lectures on the Second Epistle of Peter. 


his brethren.* If they would even maintain their present 
footing, they must look upward. If ‘that which they had, 
they would hold fast till Christ came,’ they must not think to 
keep it stowed away in a napkin, ‘idle and unfruitful,’ yet 
safe. They must trade with it in order to its continual in- 
crease. ‘Forgetting those things which are behind, and 
reaching forth unto those things which are before, they must 
press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God 
in Christ Jesus.’ Ὁ 

And you will observe also how naturally the leading thought 
of the Epistle reappears at its close. At the very outset the be- 
lievers had been reminded that it was ‘through the knowledge’ 
of God that ‘the Divine power had given unto them all things 
that pertain unto life and godliness ;’ and still the Apostle’s 
prayer for them was, that ‘grace and peace might be multi- 
plied unto them in the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our 
Lord. Here, as the conclusion of the whole matter, and as 
the only effectual preservation from the assaults and seductions 
of all forms of a science falsely so called, this same blessing 
of spiritual enlargement, and that through the same means, is 
laid on their own consciences and hearts as a most solemn 
obligation, ‘ But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord 
and Saviour Fesus Christ ;’ 1 in the gracious tempers and en- 
dowments of which our Lord and Saviour is both the Author 
and the Finisher ; and, in order to that, grow in the knowledge 
of which He Himself is the glorious and infinite object. By 
thus ‘ following on to know the Lord,’ you will at once secure 
your present safety, and best promote the work of your per- 
fecting, and preparation for ‘ His appearing and His king- 
dom.’§ In these fewest possible words, and those suggested 
by the general scope of the Epistle, Peter really comprehends 
all that is included in the various clauses of the corresponding 


* y Pet. 2:2; 2 Pet. 1:5, 8. Calvin: ‘quia hec unica est perseverandi 
ratio, si assidue progredimur, nec resides subsistimus in medio itinere.’ 

PURO, 2 25; leer 3) 9 5.7; [ἢ 

t ἐν χάριτι καὶ γνώσει τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν.----Ἰζυρίου is generally taken as govern- 
ing both nouns. (So likewise Fronmiiller in the version, though in his note he 
objects.) 

δ᾽ Hos, 617135 <2 slimy ye 


Lecture XVI.—Chapter 3 : 14-18. 523 


exhortation in Jude (20, 21): ‘ But ye, beloved, building up 
yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy 
Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the 
mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.’ 


Both Epistles also end with a doxology, that of Peter being 
addressed unmistakably to our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ ; and who can doubt that the writer thought of that 
Saviour as a Divine person? ‘ Zo Him the glory’ *—the 
elory, as of your present privileges and hopes, so of your pro- 
gressive sanctification, and ultimate complete redemption 
from sin and sorrow and death. The whole glory of this from 
first to last belongs to Him, and to Him let it be ascribed in 
the rapturous songs of the Church, ‘doth now and for ever, 
or, according to the peculiarity of the original phrase, ‘ doth 
now and unto the day of eternity’t It is a hymn of 
adoration and thanksgiving. It begins even ‘zozw, in the 
very shadow of the Cross, and from the dungeons and stakes 
of the first martyrs it comes sounding down through all the 
ages in one continuous strain; nor shall it cease till caught 
up and lost in the multitudinous anthem that shall celebrate 
the birth of the new creation, and the coronation of its King: 
‘Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and 
riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and 
blessing. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the 
earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, heard I 
saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto 
Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for 
ever and ever. And the four living creatures’—the cherubic 
representatives of the redeemed from among men—‘said, 
Amen,’ £ 


* αὐτῳ ἡ δόξα, T εἰς ἡμέραν αἰῶνος. 1 Rev. 5 : 12-143 14: 4. 


ΣΤῊ πὸ, π΄ 


¢ ate Cp Cen we WED oder el 





SEE 


SECOND EPISTLE OF PETER 


TRANSLATED. 


= 


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Snag Mi wid ἫΝ Gaalts vad 7) 
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ὅν. Εἴ τοῦ ΝΣ Pe essricy ft eo beens αἱ ee Ne 
5 ΣῊ 


αν 
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ἘΣ ἕνῃ ἐδ ΠΩΣ tt, 
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nite rs ταν 


ὩΣ sia ie Heh 
i veh ἐμόν τι 





THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PETER. 


I. StmEon PETER, a servant and an apostle of Jesus 
Christ, to those who have obtained like precious faith 
with us in the righteousness of our God and Saviour * 
Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied 
in the true knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord. 

Forasmuch as His divine power hath given unto us all 
things that ferfazz unto life and godliness, through the 
true knowledge of Him who called us by glory and might: 
whereby He hath given unto us the exceeding great and 
precious promises, that by these ye might become par- 
takers of the divine nature, having escaped from the cor- 
ruption that is in the world through lust : but for this very 
reason also do ye, contributing all diligence, furnish in your 
faith fortitude ; and in fortitude, knowledge ; and in know- 
ledge, self-control ; and in self-control, patience ; and in 
patience, godliness ; and in godliness, brotherly kindness ; 
and in brotherly kindness, love. For these things being 
yours, and increasing, render yow not idle nor unfruitful as 
to the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he 
that should lack these things is blind, being near-sighted, 
having forgotten the cleansing away of his old sins. 
Wherefore the rather, brethren, be diligent to make your 
calling and election sure ; for, doing these things, ye shall 
never fall: for so there shall be richly furnished unto you 
the entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ. 


* Or, and the Saviour. 


Go 


IO 


Att 


528 The Second Epistle of Peter. 


12 


13 


14 


15 


16 


17 


18 
19 


Wherefore I will not be negligent * to remind you al- 
ways of these things, though ye know ¢hem, and are estab- 
lished in the present truth: but I think it right, so long 
as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by way of remem- 
brance ; knowing that speedy is the laying aside of my 
tabernacle, as also our Lord Jesus Christ showed me: but 
I will endeavor that ye may even at all times be able, 
after my departure, to call these things to mind. 

For we had not followed cunningly devised fables, when 
we made known unto you the power and coming of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, but had been eye-witnesses of His 
majesty. For He received from God the Father honor 
and glory, a voice being borne to Him such as this from 
the sublime glory: This is my beloved Son, in whom Iam 
well pleased ; and this voice we, being with Him on the 
holy mount, heard borne from heaven. And we have 
more sure the prophetic word, whereunto ye do well that 
ye take heed, as unto a lamp shining in a dark place, un- 
til day dawn, and the day-star arise, in your hearts ; know- 
ing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture cometh of one’s 
own interpretation: for not by man’s will was prophecy 
brought at any time, but, borne along by the Holy Ghost, 
spake holy men of God. + 


11. But there were also false prophets among the people, 
as also among you there shall be false teachers, who privi- 
ly shall bring in destructive sects, t even denying the Mas- 
ter who bought them, bringing upon themselves speedy 
destruction. And many shall follow their lascivious ways, 
by reason of whom the way of the truth shall be evil spo- 
ken of ; and in covetousness shall they with feigned words 
make merchandise of you; for whom the judgment from 
of old lingereth not, and their destruction slumbereth not. 
For if God spared not angels when they sinned, but, cast- 
ing them to hell, delivered ¢hemz to chains of darkness, be- 
ing reserved for judgment; and spared not the ancient 


Or as many read, J will be sure. t Some read, spake men from God. 
ὁ Gr. sects of destruction. F 


ἃ 


The Second Epistle of Peter. 529 


world, but kept Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with 
seven others, * when He brought the flood upon the world 
of the ungodly ; and, reducing to ashes the cities of So- 
dom and Gomorrah, condemned ¢hem to.an overthrow, 
having made ¢kem an example of those that should after- 
wards be ungodly; and delivered righteous Lot, worn 
down with the filthy behavior of the lawless: (for in see- 
ing and hearing did the righteous man, dwelling among 
them, day after day torment his righteous soul with ¢hezr 
unlawful deeds:) the Lord knoweth how to deliver the 
godly out of temptation, but the unrighteous to reserve 
under punishment } unto the day of judgment ; but chief- 
ly those who walk after the flesh in the lust of unclean- 
ness, and despise lordship. Daring men, self-willed, they 
tremble not while railing at glories; whereas angels, who 
are greater in strength and power, bring not against them 
before the Lord a railing judgment. But these, as irra- 
tional beasts born naturally for ¢ capture and destruction, 
railing in things that they understand not, shall even per- 
ish § in their own corruption, and so receive the wages of 
unrighteousness. Accounting z¢ pleasure fo revel in the 
daytime ; spots and blemishes ; revelling in their own de- 
ceits, while feasting with you; having eyes full of an adul- 
teress, and ceasing not from sin; alluring unstable souls ; 
having a heart exercised in covetousness ; children of a 
curse ; forsaking the right way, they went astray, having 
followed the way of Balaam the soz of Bosor, who loved 
the wages of unrighteousness, but had a reproof of his 
own transgression ; a dumb ass, having spoken with man’s 
voice, restrained the madness of the prophet. These are 
wells without water, and mists |] driven by a tempest ; for 
whom the blackness of darkness for ever ** hath been re- 
served. For, speaking great swelling words of vanity, 
they allure through ff the lusts of the flesh, by lascivious 


* Gr. Woah the eighth. ἡ Gr. being punished. 
t Or, as many read, xatural irrational beasts born for. 


OV 


Om 


Ὁ 


IO 


LE 


[3 


14 


15 


16 


17 


18 


§ Or, as many, wiéterly perish. | For and mists, some read, clouds. 


** Some omit the words, for ever. tt Or, as the Greek, zx. 


530 The Second Epistle of Peter. 


19 


22) 


22 


9 


* 


ways,* those who were just escaping + from those who 
live in error; promising them liberty, while they them- 
selves are slaves of corruption ; for by what any one hath 
been overcome, by that hath he also been enslaved. For 
if, having escaped from the pollutions of the world through ¢ 
the true knowledge of the Lord § and Saviour Jesus Christ, 
they are yet entangled again therein, and overcome, the 
last state is become worse with them than the first. For 
it were better for them not to have known the way of 
righteousness, than, having known 2z¢, to turn back from 
the holy commandment delivered unto them. But there 
hath happened unto them that of the true proverb: The 
dog turned back to his own vomit ; and: The sow that was 
washed, into the wallowing-place of mire. 


III. This now second Epistle, beloved, write I unto you, 
in doth which I stir up your pure mind by way of remem- 
brance, that ye may be mindful of the words spoken be- 
fore by the holy prophets, and of your Apostles’ com- 
mandment || of the Lord and Saviour: knowing this first, 
that there shall come at the end of the days mockers in 
mockery, ** walking according to their own lusts, and say- 
ing: Where is the promise of his coming? for, since the 
fathers fell asleep, all things continue thus from the be- 
ginning of the creation. For of this they are willingly 
ignorant, that, by the word of God, heavens were from 
of old, and earth out of water and by water consisting ; 
whereby the world that then was; being flooded with 
water, perished: but the heavens which are now, and the | 
earth, have by the same word ff} been laid up in store, be- 
ing reserved for fire unto the day of judgment and de- 
struction of the ungodly men. But of this one thing be 
ye, beloved, not ignorant, that one day zs with the Lord as 
a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The 


Some copies read, by lasciviousness. 


Τ᾽ Some copies read, who were really escaped. 
{ Gr. 7. ὃ Some copies read, our Lord. 
|| Some copies read, the comm. of us the Apostles, or, our Apostles’ comm. 


χω 


Some copies omit the words, 27: mockery. tt Some read, ὅν His word. 


The Second Epistle of Peter. 531 


Lord is not tardy concerning the promise,* as some ac- 
count tardiness ; but is long-suffering toward us, ἡ not will- 
ing that any should perish, but that all should come to re- 
pentance. 

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief; $ in which 
the heavens shall pass away with a rushing noise, but the 
elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat, and the 
earth and the works therein shall be burned up. Since, 
then, all these things are dissolving,§ what manner of 
persons ought ye to be in αὐ holy behavior and godliness, 
looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, 
in consequence of which the heavens being on fire shall 
be dissolved, and the elements melt with fervent heat. 
But, according to His promise, || we look for new heavens 
and a new earth, wherein righteousness dwelleth. 

Wherefore, beloved, looking for these things, be dili- 
gent that spotless and blameless ye may be found of Him 
_ in peace; and the long-suffering of our Lord account sal- 
vation: even as also our beloved brother Paul, according 
to the wisdom given unto him, wrote unto you, as also in 
all the Epistles,** speaking in them of these things ; among 
which ΤΊ are some things hard to be understood, which the 
unlearned and unstable wrest, as also the other Scriptures, 
unto their own destruction. Do ye, therefore, beloved, 
- knowing ¢hese things before, beware lest, carried away 
with the error of the lawless, ye fall from your own stead- 
fastness. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our 
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To Him the glory, both 
now and unto the day of eternity. Amen. 


* Or, The Lord of the promise ts not tardy. 
+ Some read, foward you ; others, for your sakes. 
1 Some copies add the words, 27 the night. 
§ Some read, ὅγε all these things are thus dissolving. 
|| Some read, promises. 
**& Some read, all Epistles. 
tt Some read, zz which, (Epistles.) 


IO 
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LN DE Δ; 


ADULTERY, adulteress, 467, 468, 469. 

All, submit to one another, 316, 317, 318, 319. 

Angels, imitators of the prophets in their inter- 
est regarding the prophecies, 56-59 ; who sin- 
ned, 449, 450. 

Answer, lit. asking, inquiry of a good conscience, 


etc., 254. 


Apostle, an authoritative expounder of Christ’s | 


law, 14. 

Ark, was a preparing, 248. 

BABYLON, 333. 

Balaam, 469, 470. 

Baptism, 252, 253, 254. 

Barren, idle and unfruitful, 380, 381. 

Blessed=adored and praised evA. applied only to 
God, 25. 

Blindness, near-sightedness, 382, 383. 

Brotherhood, to be loved, 154, 155. 

Brotherly kindness in godliness, and in brotherly 
kindness love, 375, 376. 

Brother-lovers, Philadelphians, 208. 

Brute beasts, irrational beasts, 465, 466. 

Busybody in other men’s matters=intermeddler, 
classed with a murderer and a thief, 293. 


Cuarns of darkness, 451. 

Charity, love intense, 278, 279, 280. 

Christ suffered once, 231; for (concerning) sins, 
232; the just for (in the room of) the unjust, 
233; to bring us to God, 233, 234; his suffer- 
ings shared by us, 288, 289; being reproached 
for the name of, blessedness of, 290, 291, 292 ; 
whom having not seen ye love; love of, to us 


and ours to Him make up a great joy—‘‘ my 


Beloved is mine, and I am His,” 38, 39 ; know- 
ledge of, the means of life, 364, 365; resurrec- 
tion, makes baptism efficacious, 256; power 
and coming of, not the destruction of Jerusa- 
lem, 400, 401, 402, 403; the Lamb faultless 
and spotless, 77-79; true knowledge of, 381, 
382 ; resurrection of, the means of regenera- 
tion, 26, 27; the Living Stone, 104; Chief Cor- 
ner Stone, 105; at the right hand of God, 258, 
259. 

Christians, a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a 
people who are a possession of God, called out 
of darkness into marvellous light, 121-123. 

Christian, suffering as a, 293, 294. 

Christ-like, not rendering evil for evil, etc., 210, 
211. 

Church that is at Babylon, she that is coélect in 
Babylon, 332. 

Commandments of Apostles, 485, 486. 

Conscience toward God, commands patient sub- 
mission on the part of slayes, 166, 167; good, 
toward God, 255, 256. 

Constraint no motive for a pastor, 305. 

Conversation honest=good behavior, 130-133. 

Courteous men, lit. kindly-minded, 209, 210. 

Covetousness, making merchandise, 443, 444. 

Crown of glory unfading, 309, 310. 


Day oF JUDGMENT, 497, 498; day, one, is with 
the Lord, etc.,499; of visitation, 134, 135. 

Decease, departure, Peter’s, 395. 

Devil, adversary, roaring lion, 322, 323, 324; 
steadfastness in the faith the only means of re« 
sisting the, 325. 

Dignities, glories, 462, 463. 


534 


Divine nature, how we become partakers of, 367, 
368. 
Dog and his vomit, etc., 479, 480. 


EartTH standing out of the water, etc., earth out 
of water, and by water consisting, 494, 495; 
496. 

Elect, chosen ones, foreknown by God, 18, 19; 
sanctified by the Spirit for obedience, etc., 20. 

Election, how made sure, 384, 385, 386. 

End of all things, not the end of life, etc., Calvin 
quoted, 274, 275, 276. 

End of disbelievers, what shall it be? 296, 297. 

Ensamples, patterns to the flock, 308. 

Entrance into the kingdom richly furnished, 387, 
388. 

' Error of the wicked, lit. lawless, 521. 


Eye-witnesses of His majesty, 404, 405. 


FABLEs, cunningly devised, 403, 404. 

Faith, bestowed by God, precious, 352, 353; 
through, in the righteousness, etc., 354, 355. 

Fear, 70, 72. 

Figure, Baptism, 251, 252. 

Filthy lucre, base gain, 306. 

Flesh, being put to death in, 240, 241, 242. 

Followers, imitators of that which is good, 220, 


221. 


Girt, ἃ gift, 282, 283. 
Glory and virtue, by glory and might, 364. 
Glory, the glory to Him for ever, 523; glory, 
credit, no honor to be quiet when in fault, etc., 
167, 168. 
God of all grace perfects, establishes, strength- 
ens, settles His children after they have suffered 
“a little while,” 327, 328, 329; the Father, He 
(Christ) received honor and glory from, 405, 
406, 407, 408, 409; the sole author of regenera- 
tion, 26; the will of, our principle, 263; not 
the will of the Gentiles; lasciviousness, etc., 
264, 265; to be feared, 155. 
Godliness in patience, 375. 
Gospel, preached to the dead, etc., 268, 269, 270. 
Government, lordship, 461. 
Grace, grow in the, 522. 








Lhdex. 


Greatly rejoice, (greatly exult,) great joy com- 
patible with great trials, 36, 37. 
Growth, to be continually sought, 91, 92. 


HErrR of a blessing, 211, 212. 

Heresies, damnable, lit. and prop. destructive 
sects, 439, 440. 

Heritage, heritages, allotted portions, 308. 

Holiness, God demands holiness in His children, 
68, 69. 

Holy G. spake, 428, 429. 

Hope, lively, (living,) the effect of regeneration, 
28, 29; to the end, (hope perfectly,) 64, 6s. 

Hospitality without murmuring, 281, 282. 

House of God, the judgment beginning from the, 
294, 295+ 

Humility under God’s hand, 320, 321. 

Husbands, 195-198. 


INHERITANCE, the invariable accompaniment of 
hope, 29; reserved, (kept,) like the best wine 
at Cana, 31, note. 


Interpretation, private, lit. of one’s own, 424, 


425, 426, 427, 428. 
JUDGMENT, reserved for, 451. 


Kino, to be honored, 156-159. 

Kiss, peace to all, etc., 334. 

Knowledge of the trials of brethren, an encou- 
ragement to patience, 325, 326, 327. 


LizeERTY, not to be used as a cloak, (covering,) 
etc., 147-150. 

Light, lamp shining in a dark place, 416, 417, 
418, 419, 420, 421, 422. ᾿ 

Loins of the mind, to be girded up, 63. 

Long-suffering of our Lord, account salvation, 
517. 

Lords, lording, forbidden to pastors, 367. 

Lord, Master, denying the, who bought them, 
bringing upon themselves speedy destruction, 
440, 441, 445, 446; not willing that any should 
perish, 500, sor. 

Lot, vexed, worn down, 454, 455. 


Index. 


Love of brethren, the result of soul-purification 
in obeying the truth through the Spirit, 81-83. 

Lover of life, 212-217. 

Lusts, fleshly, 126-128; war against the soul, 


129, 130. 


Mav, hidden in the heart=to Paul’s inner man, 


190. 
Mark, ‘my son,’ 333. 


Men, to be honored, 151-153. 

Milk, of the word, sincere, lit. rational, guileless 
milk, the only means of growth, 93, 94. 

Mind, thought, intent, the thought of Christ suf- 
fering, the motive to holiness, the armor of 


the soul, 260, 261, 262. 


New HEAVENS, etc., 511, 512, 513. 
Noah, a preacher of righteousness, 452. 


Noise, great, a rushing noise, etc., 508, 509. 


OBEDIENCE, required of God’s children, 66, 67. 

Old sins, forgetting the cleansing of, 383. 

Oracles of God, the rule of discourse, 284. 

Ordinance of man, human institution, to be sub- 
mitted to, 136-139; for the Lord’s (Christ’s) 
sake, 140. 

Overseers, taking the oversight, overseeing ; the 
office of presbyter and overseer or bishop iden- 


tical in the apostolic age, 304. 


PAuL, our beloved brother, 518, 519, 520. 

Patience, in self-control, 374, 375. 

Peter, a servant, bondman of Jesus Christ, no 
pope, 350, 351; a partaker of the glory, etc., 
303 ; a co-presbyter, 300, 301; a witness of the 
sufferings of Christ, 301, 302. 

Pitiful men, tender-hearted, 209. 

Plaiting of hair, etc., 188, 189. 

Power of God gives life and godliness, 362, 363. 

Preciousness of Christ, the Living Stone belongs 
to believers only, 114, 115; to unbelievers He 
is a stumbling-stone, 116-118. 

Priesthood, holy, Christians, 112, 113. 

Promises, great and precious, given, 360, 36r. 

Prophets, eager students of their own predictions 
concerning Christ, 48-51. 


535 


Punishment of evil-doers, etc., the end of govern- 


ment, 141-143. 


RAILING accusation, judgment, 464. 

Ready confession, be ready always for an an- 
SWer, 224, 225, 226, 227. 

Regeneration, by the word of God, 84-86. 

Rejected by men, (Stone,) 106 ; with God elect, 
106, 107. 

Respect of persons, none with God, 73-75. " 

Revelation of Christ (from heaven) the grand 
incentive to every Christian duty, 60-62, 


Righteous, scarcely saved, 297, 298. 


SACRAMENTS, Calvin’s account of, 257. 

Saints, kept (guarded) guarded in the power of 
God as in the element of their life ; wondered 
at and railed at, 266, 267. 

Sarah, 191-194. 

Scoffers, mockers in mockery, 487, 488, 489. 

Servants, domestics, slaves to be subject, etc., 
160-165. 

Silvanus, Silas, the faithful brother, 331. 

Sobriety, 64; prudence, soundness of mind, 276, 
277- 

Sodom, etc., 453. 

Spirit, meek and quiet, 190, τοι; quickened in, 
242, 243. 

Spirits, disobedient in the days of Noah, 240, 243. 

Stone, precious, (ChriSt,) 108. 

Stones, living, Christians, 109, r1o. 

Strangers, sojourners, pilgrims, Christians, 16, 
17. 

Stripes, lit. weals, the marks of the stripes, 
slaves (suffering for Christ) could well bear 
cruel blows when thinking of the scourging of 
Jesus, 180-184. i 

Sufferers for righteousness’ sake, 222, 223. 

Sympathy, having compassion, 207, 208. 


Swelling (words) of vanity, 475, 476, 477, 478. 


TABERNACLE, while in it, Peter’s work, 392, 
303; laying aside of, speedy, 393, 394. 

Teachers, false, 436, 437, 438. 

Temperance, self-control in knowledge, 373, 374. 

Temptations, trials that may lead to sin, grievous 


to the saints, 42, 43. 


536 Index. 


Thief in the night, 505, 506. 

Things, looking for these, etc., 516, 517. 

Trial, (proving,) the proving of faith more pre- 
cious than that of gold that perisheth, 44, 45, 
46; lit. burning not to be thought strange, 286, 
287, 288. 

Truth, way of, evil spoken of, 443. 


Unanimity, be all of one mind, 205-207. 


VirTUE, fortitude, 372; knowledge in, 373. 


Water, which in a like figure now saveth, as 
also even baptism, 251. 

Watching, sobriety, for prayer, 277. 

Way of righteousness, 478, 479. 

Ways, pernicious, destructive, 442. 

Wells, without water, 473, 474, 475. 

Well-doing, God’s way of silencing the foolish, 
145-47. . 

Wives, be subject, etc., 185-187. 

Word, a more sure, of prophecy, more sure the 
prophetic word, 413, 414, 415, 416. 

Works, therein ghall be burned up, 509, 510, 511. 


Youncer, submit to the elder, 312, 313, 314, 315. 


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